The World of Ancient Greece : A Daily Life Encyclopedia [1, 2] 2019014386, 2019015427, 9781440837319, 9781440837302, 9781440849404, 9781440849411

Table of contents :
Cover
About the pagination of this eBook
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chronology
Volume 1:
Arts, 1
Introduction
Dance
Gold and Silver
History
Literature, Hellenistic
Mosaics
Music
Painting, Pottery
Painting, Walls/Panels
Philosophy, Aristotle
Philosophy, Cynics
Philosophy, Epicureans
Philosophy, Platonic
Philosophy, Skeptics
Philosophy, Stoics
Poetry, Epic
Poetry, Lyric
Rhetoric
Satyr Plays
Sculpture, Archaic
Sculpture, Hellenistic
Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical
Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical
Second Sophistic Movement
Sophists
Temple Architecture
Theater, Comedy
Theater, Tragedy
Economics and Work
Introduction
Actors
Agriculture
Animal Husbandry
Apothecaries/Pharmacology
Banking
Carpentry
Cloth-Making
Cost of Living
Currency
Debt
Fishing
Landownership
Masonry
Merchants and Markets
Metal-Refining
Metalworking
Midwives and Wet Nurses
Mining
Orators and Speechwriters
Piracy and Banditry
Pottery-Making
Retirement
Slavery, Private
Slavery, Public
Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era
Taxation
Trade
Travel
Viticulture
Weights and Measures
Family and Gender
Introduction
Abandonment and Abortion
Adoption
Adultery
Blended Families
Burial
Childbirth and Infancy
Childhood and Youth
Clans/Gene
Daughters
Death and Dying
Divorce
Extended Family
Fathers
Friendship and Love
Grandparents
Homosexuality
Inheritance
Marriage
Men
Mothers
Mourning/Memorialization
Play
Sexuality
Sons
Weddings
Women
Fashion and Appearance
Introduction
Bathing/Baths
Body, Attitudes toward
Clothing, Classical Age, Females
Clothing, Classical Age, Males
Cosmetics
Footwear
Foreign Dress
Hairstyles
Headgear
Hygiene
Jewelry
Food and Drink
Introduction
Bread
Cheese and Other Dairy Products
Condiments and Seasonings
Cooking
Dessert
Drunkenness
Famine and Food Supply
Feasts and Banquets
Fruits and Nuts
Grains
Hospitality
Hunting and Wild Game
Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils
Legumes
Meals
Meat
Nectar and Ambrosia
Nutrition and Malnutrition
Olives and Olive Oil
Poisons and Toxic Foods
Potions
Poultry, Birds, and Eggs
Seafood
Soups and Stews
Vegetables
Vegetarianism
Wine
Volume 2:
Housing and Community
Introduction
Acropolis
Andron and Gynaikonitis
Cemeteries
Colonization
Country Life
Fortifications
Furniture and Furnishings
Health and Illness
Household Religion
Housing Architecture
Infrastructure
Marketplaces
Palace Complexes, Bronze Age
Plague/Epidemic Disease
Public Buildings
Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners
Urban Life
Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering
Politics and Warfare
Introduction
Alexander the Great, Wars of
Aristocracies
Aristotle, Political Theory of
Arms and Armor
Assemblies
Athenian Constitution
Carthage, Wars with
Cavalry
Citizenship
City-States
Civil War
Councils
Democracies
Diplomacy
Ethnos
Hoplite Soldiers
Justice and Punishment
Leagues/Alliances
Monarchies
Navies
Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE)
Persian Wars (490–478 BCE)
Phalanx
Plato, Political Theory of
Public Officials
Siege Technology
Spartan Constitution
Tyrannies
Warfare, Attitudes toward
Recreation and Social Customs
Introduction
Athletics
Boxing
City Dionysia
Class Structure and Status
Entertainers, Popular
Festivals
Gymnasia/Palaestrae
Horse Racing
Leisure Activities
Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare
Olympic Games
Panathenaia
Panhellenic Games
Prostitutes and Courtesans
Racing
Stadiums and Hippodromes
Symposia
Theaters
Wrestling
Religion and Beliefs
Introduction
Afterlife/Underworld
Asylum
Bacchic Worship
Chthonic Spirits
Creation
Deification
Eleusinian Mysteries
Libations and Offerings
Magic
Myths and Heroes
Olympian Gods
Oracles
Orphism
Priests and Priestesses
Prophecy and Divination
Pythagoreans
Sacrifices
Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves
Science and Technology
Introduction
Alphabet
Artificial Power
Astronomy
Biology
Botany
Calendars
Cosmology
Education
Engineering
Experimentation and Research
Exploration
Geography
Geometry
Greek Language Groups
Inscriptions
Libraries and Literacy
Linear A and Linear B
Machines
Mathematics and Numeracy
Medicine
Navigation
“Paper”-Making
Physics
Ships/Shipbuilding
Time-Reckoning
Vehicles
Zoology
Primary Documents
Aeschines on Foreign Negotiation and Domestic Mud-Slinging(343 BCE)
Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE)
Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE)
Diogenes Laertius on the Philosopher Hipparchia (Third Century CE)
Euripides on Women’s Tragedy of Surviving War (415 BCE)
Herodotus on Gelon’s Refusal to Join the Greek Alliance (481 BCE)
Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE)
“Hippocrates” on Diagnosis and Observation of Illnesses (Late Fifth Century BCE)
Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown)
Lysias on the Murder of an Adulterer (403 BCE)
Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE)
The Old Oligarch on the Problems of Democracy(Later Fifth Century BCE)
Pindar Celebrates a Wrestling Champion (c. 463 BCE)
Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE)
Poetry—Greek Poets on Love
Poetry—Greek Poets on War
Theocritus Describes Women at a Festival (Early Third Century BCE)
Thucydides on the Corcyraean Revolution (427 BCE)
Xenophon on the Roles of Wife and Husband (c. 362 BCE)
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

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The World of Ancient Greece

Recent Titles in Daily Life Encyclopedias The World of Ancient Rome: A Daily Life Encyclopedia James W. Ermatinger The World of the Civil War: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Lisa Tendrich Frank, Editor The World of the American Revolution: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Merril D. Smith, Editor The World of Ancient Egypt: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Peter Lacovara The World of the American West: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Gordon Morris Bakken, Editor The World of Renaissance Italy: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Joseph P. Byrne The World of Antebellum America: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Alexandra Kindell, Editor The World of the Crusades: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Andrew Holt The World of Jim Crow America: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Steven A. Reich, Editor

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ARTS TO FOOD AND DRINK

The World of Ancient Greece A Daily Life Encyclopedia

Michael Lovano

Daily Life Encyclopedias

Copyright © 2020 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lovano, Michael, author. Title: The world of ancient Greece : a daily life encyclopedia / Michael Lovano. Description: First edition. | Santa Barbara, California : Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC [2020] | Series: Daily life encyclopedias | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019014386 (print) | LCCN 2019015427 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440837319 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440837302 (set : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440849404 (volume 1) | ISBN 9781440849411 (volume 2) Subjects: LCSH: Greece—Civilization—To 146 B.C.—Encyclopedias. | Greece—Social life and customs—Encyclopedias. Classification: LCC DF16 (ebook) | LCC DF16 .L68 2020 (print) | DDC 938.003—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019014386 ISBN: 978-1-4408-3730-2 (set) 978-1-4408-4940-4 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-4941-1 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-3731-9 (ebook) 24 23 22 21 20  1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available as an eBook. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 www.abc-clio.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

To Vince and Joe I could never have asked for brothers more true, my own personal Castor and Pollux, whose love and support have inspired me in so many of the achievements in my life, whose tenacious encouragement has helped this project come to fruition. And to my nephew Simoni, the most Greek of them all!

Contents

Preface, xv Introduction, xvii Chronology, xxi VOLUME 1 Arts, 1 Introduction, 1 Dance, 2 Gold and Silver, 4 History, 9 Literature, Hellenistic, 13 Mosaics, 18 Music, 22 Painting, Pottery, 25 Painting, Walls/Panels, 30 Philosophy, Aristotle, 35 Philosophy, Cynics, 37 Philosophy, Epicureans, 40 Philosophy, Platonic, 42 Philosophy, Skeptics, 45 Philosophy, Stoics, 48 Poetry, Epic, 50 Poetry, Lyric, 53 Rhetoric, 56 Satyr Plays, 59

vii

viii

Contents

Sculpture, Archaic, 63 Sculpture, Hellenistic, 67 Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical, 72 Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical, 77 Second Sophistic Movement, 81 Sophists, 85 Temple Architecture, 89 Theater, Comedy, 93 Theater, Tragedy, 96 Economics and Work, 101 Introduction, 101 Actors, 102 Agriculture, 105 Animal Husbandry, 109 Apothecaries/Pharmacology, 114 Banking, 118 Carpentry, 121 Cloth-Making, 125 Cost of Living, 129 Currency, 132 Debt, 135 Fishing, 138 Landownership, 141 Masonry, 145 Merchants and Markets, 149 Metal-Refining, 155 Metalworking, 158 Midwives and Wet Nurses, 161 Mining, 164 Orators and Speechwriters, 168 Piracy and Banditry, 173 Pottery-Making, 177 Retirement, 180 Slavery, Private, 182 Slavery, Public, 186 Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era, 189 Taxation, 192 Trade, 197 Travel, 201

Contents

Viticulture, 205 Weights and Measures, 208 Family and Gender, 213 Introduction, 213 Abandonment and Abortion, 213 Adoption, 216 Adultery, 218 Blended Families, 222 Burial, 226 Childbirth and Infancy, 229 Childhood and Youth, 234 Clans/Geneˉ, 238 Daughters, 241 Death and Dying, 247 Divorce, 250 Extended Family, 254 Fathers, 258 Friendship and Love, 262 Grandparents, 267 Homosexuality, 271 Inheritance, 275 Marriage, 278 Men, 281 Mothers, 285 Mourning/Memorialization, 289 Play, 293 Sexuality, 297 Sons, 301 Weddings, 305 Women, 308 Fashion and Appearance, 317 Introduction, 317 Bathing/Baths, 317 Body, Attitudes toward, 321 Clothing, Classical Age, Females, 325 Clothing, Classical Age, Males, 329 Cosmetics, 331 Footwear, 335

ix

x

Contents

Foreign Dress, 338 Hairstyles, 341 Headgear, 344 Hygiene, 347 Jewelry, 351 Food and Drink, 357 Introduction, 357 Bread, 358 Cheese and Other Dairy Products, 360 Condiments and Seasonings, 364 Cooking, 367 Dessert, 371 Drunkenness, 374 Famine and Food Supply, 378 Feasts and Banquets, 382 Fruits and Nuts, 387 Grains, 390 Hospitality, 393 Hunting and Wild Game, 396 Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils, 399 Legumes, 402 Meals, 405 Meat, 408 Nectar and Ambrosia, 411 Nutrition and Malnutrition, 414 Olives and Olive Oil, 418 Poisons and Toxic Foods, 421 Potions, 424 Poultry, Birds, and Eggs, 426 Seafood, 429 Soups and Stews, 432 Vegetables, 434 Vegetarianism, 436 Wine, 440 VOLUME 2 Housing and Community, 445 Introduction, 445

Contents

Acropolis, 445 Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis, 449 Cemeteries, 451 Colonization, 454 Country Life, 458 Fortifications, 463 Furniture and Furnishings, 466 Health and Illness, 469 Household Religion, 474 Housing Architecture, 479 Infrastructure, 481 Marketplaces, 488 Palace Complexes, Bronze Age, 492 Plague/Epidemic Disease, 495 Public Buildings, 498 Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners, 500 Urban Life, 503 Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering, 510 Politics and Warfare, 517 Introduction, 517 Alexander the Great, Wars of, 518 Aristocracies, 523 Aristotle, Political Theory of, 527 Arms and Armor, 530 Assemblies, 535 Athenian Constitution, 539 Carthage, Wars with, 543 Cavalry, 547 Citizenship, 551 City-States, 554 Civil War, 557 Councils, 562 Democracies, 565 Diplomacy, 570 Ethnos, 575 Hoplite Soldiers, 579 Justice and Punishment, 584 Leagues/Alliances, 590 Monarchies, 594

xi

xii

Contents

Navies, 597 Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), 603 Persian Wars (490–478 BCE), 607 Phalanx, 610 Plato, Political Theory of, 616 Public Officials, 620 Siege Technology, 625 Spartan Constitution, 628 Tyrannies, 631 Warfare, Attitudes toward, 635 Recreation and Social Customs, 639 Introduction, 639 Athletics, 640 Boxing, 643 City Dionysia, 646 Class Structure and Status, 650 Entertainers, Popular, 654 Festivals, 658 Gymnasia/Palaestrae, 663 Horse Racing, 667 Leisure Activities, 670 Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare, 674 Olympic Games, 679 Panathenaia, 683 Panhellenic Games, 686 Prostitutes and Courtesans, 690 Racing, 695 Stadiums and Hippodromes, 698 Symposia, 701 Theaters, 704 Wrestling, 707 Religion and Beliefs, 711 Introduction, 711 Afterlife/Underworld, 712 Asylum, 716 Bacchic Worship, 718 Chthonic Spirits, 721 Creation, 725

Contents

Deification, 728 Eleusinian Mysteries, 731 Libations and Offerings, 735 Magic, 738 Myths and Heroes, 742 Olympian Gods, 750 Oracles, 753 Orphism, 759 Priests and Priestesses, 763 Prophecy and Divination, 766 Pythagoreans, 770 Sacrifices, 773 Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves, 777 Science and Technology, 785 Introduction, 785 Alphabet, 785 Artificial Power, 789 Astronomy, 792 Biology, 797 Botany, 801 Calendars, 804 Cosmology, 807 Education, 810 Engineering, 815 Experimentation and Research, 818 Exploration, 823 Geography, 826 Geometry, 830 Greek Language Groups, 834 Inscriptions, 836 Libraries and Literacy, 841 Linear A and Linear B, 845 Machines, 848 Mathematics and Numeracy, 852 Medicine, 855 Navigation, 860 “Paper”-Making, 863 Physics, 866 Ships/Shipbuilding, 870

xiii

xiv

Contents

Time-Reckoning, 874 Vehicles, 877 Zoology, 881 Primary Documents, 885 Aeschines on Foreign Negotiation and Domestic Mud-Slinging   (343 BCE), 885 Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE), 887 Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE), 892 Diogenes Laertius on the Philosopher Hipparchia (Third Century CE), 894 Euripides on Women’s Tragedy of Surviving War (415 BCE), 895 Herodotus on Gelon’s Refusal to Join the Greek Alliance (481 BCE), 900 Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE), 902 “Hippocrates” on Diagnosis and Observation of Illnesses (Late Fifth   Century BCE), 905 Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown), 907 Lysias on the Murder of an Adulterer (403 BCE), 908 Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores   (Late Fourth Century BCE), 910 The Old Oligarch on the Problems of Democracy   (Later Fifth Century BCE), 914 Pindar Celebrates a Wrestling Champion (c. 463 BCE), 916 Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE), 919 Poetry—Greek Poets on Love, 921 Poetry—Greek Poets on War, 924 Theocritus Describes Women at a Festival (Early Third Century BCE), 928 Thucydides on the Corcyraean Revolution (427 BCE), 931 Xenophon on the Roles of Wife and Husband (c. 362 BCE), 934 Bibliography, 937 Index, 943

Preface

The World of Ancient Greece: A Daily Life Encyclopedia opens to high school students, undergraduate students, and general readers the history, society, and culture of the ancient Greeks, extending from the Bronze Age through the height of the Roman Empire, with an emphasis on developments in the Classical Age (c. 490–323 BCE) and the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE). In the midst of such broad coverage, it focuses readers’ attention on key aspects of the ancient Greek world, things that everyone who has studied the ancient Greeks ought to know. It is designed to give a confident foundation in the essentials, information that can be built upon through further inquiry. The Encyclopedia consists of over 230 easily accessible entries across two volumes. Entries are grouped thematically in the following ten categories: Arts Economics and Work Family and Gender Fashion and Appearance Food and Drink Housing and Community Politics and Warfare Recreation and Social Customs Religion and Beliefs Science and Technology Each category has its own introductory section for context. As for the entries themselves, some illustrate important intellectual traditions (like “Second Sophistic Movement,” “History,” or “Philosophy, Aristotle”), political and military institutions (like “Assemblies,” “Leagues/Alliances,” or “Public Officials”), or locations typical within Greek communities (like “Cemeteries,” “Gymnasia/Palaestrae,” or “Theaters”). Other entries explain key aspects of personal life (like “Bathing/ xv

xvi

Preface

Baths,” “Body, Attitudes toward,” or “Play”), religious life (like “Orphism,” “Prophecy and Divination,” or “Magic”), communal life (like “Feasts and Banquets,” “Panhellenic Games,” or “Entertainers, Popular”), and family life (like “Mourning/Memorialization,” “Adoption,” or “Weddings”). Defining elements of Greek society and culture (like “Poetry, Epic” and “Poetry, Lyric,” “Citizenship,” “Festivals,” and “Hospitality”) as well as beliefs (like “Creation” and “Afterlife/Underworld”), objects (like “Jewelry” and “Machines”), and foods (“Cheese and Other Dairy Products,” “Wine,” “Poisons and Toxic Foods”) are explored as are an array of skills (from “Carpentry” to “Mining”) and sciences (from “Engineering” to “Time-Reckoning”). In the first volume of the Encyclopedia, a chronological timeline and an introductory essay help orient the reader to the world of the ancient Greeks. Images also help bring that world visually to life. Each entry contains cross-references to other entries and bibliographic suggestions for further reading to give direction to the curious for their further research. An appendix of nearly twenty primary documents in the second volume allows readers to delve into the mindset and feelings of the ancient Greeks themselves—there is no better way to understand them than from their own words. There are excerpts addressing women and men in democratic Athens from the comic playwright Aristophanes, the legend of Alexander the Great from the biographer Plutarch, the horrors of revolution from the historian Thucydides, epidemics from the Hippocratic medical texts, to name only a few. Inclusion of primary texts reinforces the themes of the entries, providing unique perspectives and depth. A general bibliography of selected resources is also included in the second volume. Many people have heard of the famous Greek philosophers or poets or have studied the battle tactics of ancient Greek armies. How many people know what ancient Greeks liked to eat and drink at their private dinner parties? How many people ever consider how the Greeks made their tools or what sorts of songs or dances they enjoyed? How many realize that the Greeks understood the essentials of trigonometry and calculus? The World of Ancient Greece: A Daily Life Encyclopedia devotes time to the well-known aspects of Greek life as well as introduces readers to aspects that do not usually receive that much “press.” This work thus provides what everyone should know about living, working, and thinking “ancient Greek style,” providing a sort of handbook that the reader can take along on a virtual journey through the world of the ancient Greeks.

Introduction

The ancient Roman poet Horace, who lived in the first century BCE, once wrote that Greece, though conquered militarily by Rome, had, in fact, captured Rome. He meant by this that the Romans became cultured and civilized thanks to the Greeks, whose literature, philosophy, science, art, and so much else, had cast such a spell over the “rude” Romans. It could certainly be argued that no other culture in human history has had as much worldwide impact as the ancient Greek culture has. The “modern” world finds its primary birthplace in ancient Greece. We have inherited their categorization of government, whether aristocracy, democracy, or tyranny. Their innovative thinkers inspired the firm commitment to rationalism and science that has come to characterize modernity since the Scientific Revolution. The ancient Greeks have passed on to us their love of athletics; their sense that struggle and competition should be embraced in all aspects of life; and their respect for the performing and plastic arts and for the storytelling of poetry, history, and theater—all of which teach us about ourselves, who we are, and where we have come from. “Philosophy,” “rhetoric,” “tragedy,” “economy”: these are ancient Greek words, and they embody ancient Greek ideas about the nature of the world. The civilization of the ancient Greeks emerged in the second millennium BCE as seminomadic tribes, speakers of the Greek language in several forms, filtered into the Aegean region. They were not the first inhabitants of that part of the globe; hunters and gatherers had been there before them (as far back as 55,000 BCE) as well as farmers and herdsmen (as far back as 7000 BCE). Still, the Greeks of the Bronze Age, especially those whom scholars call the Mycenaean Greeks (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), introduced a socioeconomically, politically, and militarily sophisticated culture to that region unlike anything it had previously experienced. These Bronze Age Greeks had much in common with their neighbors to the east and south, the advanced societies of the Ancient Near East, especially the Hittites and the Egyptians; from these societies, the earliest-recorded Greeks learned much. Evidence from archaeology (ruins of fortresses and tombs and artifacts xvii

xviii

Introduction

from personal life, trade, and warfare as well as the earliest records written in a form of the Greek language) provides us with much of our knowledge for this period in Greek history. Then came a socioeconomic collapse that still baffles explanation (or, at least, easy explanation), and the Greek world consequently entered a “Dark Age” (c.  1100–c. 800 BCE), in which much of our archaeological record vanishes. The Greek culture that emerged afterward, the one with which most moderns are ­familiar—with its temples, statues, Olympian gods, games, alphabet, heroes, and so on—certainly began to develop within that murky period of time, for it appears fully formed (like Athena from the head of Zeus) at the dawn of what scholars call the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE). From the end of the Dark Age, the historical record becomes rich in archaeological evidence, with a wealth of artifacts (currency, inscriptions, papyri) recording the thoughts, hopes, and aspirations of the Greeks themselves. To the Archaic Period also date the original works of Greek literature, history, philosophy, and science that were so thoughtfully preserved and duplicated in manuscript form by later generations of Greeks down through the days of the Byzantine Empire. By the middle of the Archaic Period, Greeks lived around the Aegean basin, along all its shores and on its islands (like frogs around a pond as the philosopher Plato later put it), but they also lived along the coasts of the Black Sea, on the island of Sicily and on the Italian mainland, and even along the northwest shore of the Mediterranean as far as Spain. They lived in separate, fiercely independent communities (most known as poleis), but they referred to themselves collectively nonetheless as Hellenes (after their mythical common ancestor). To them, “Hellas,” or “Greece,” as we would say (following Roman terminology), was wherever Greeks lived; it was not so much a geographical as a cultural notion. Indeed, the rugged and isolating topography of the Greek world discouraged political unity and encouraged instead political self-sufficiency as well as economic and military rivalry, hallmarks of ancient Greek identity. Eventually, over a thousand Greek communities formed within the larger cultural unity of Hellenism, and like their Mycenaean ancestors, these communities maintained dynamic trade and other forms of contact with one another and with the non-Greek cultures of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, primarily by sea. The Classical Age (c. 490–323 BCE) and the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) saw the flourishing of Hellenic culture in all its aspects. The former was the time of the Parthenon’s construction in Athens, the latter that of the great Pharos lighthouse in Alexandria. The former saw quintessential philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the latter groundbreaking scientists like Herophilus, Archimedes, and Aristarchus. The former was the time of the Persian invasion of mainland Greece, the devastating internecine war between Athens and Sparta, and

Introduction

the military conquests of Alexander the Great; the latter was the time of dynastic conflicts among Ptolemies and Seleucids, grudge matches with Parthians, and struggles among Greek federal leagues. The former saw the heyday of Athenian democracy, the latter that of great multiethnic cities and kingdoms under Greek leadership. The Hellenistic Era also witnessed the intrusion of the ancient Romans into Greek affairs and the eventual absorption of all the Greek-inhabited territories, either through collaboration or conquest, into the Roman Empire. The city of Rome was replete with Greek textiles, paintings, statues, books, slaves, and much else already by the middle of the second century BCE. The Romans had not destroyed Greek culture. Indeed, under their emperors (30 BCE–476 CE), they took the many elements of Hellenism that they themselves had adopted (mythology, philosophy, literature, poetry, science, sculpture, painting, architecture, and so much more) and spread them throughout Western Europe as far as Britain. Despite the protests of Roman purists, Greeks brought education to Rome, and Greek became the language of high culture across the Roman Empire, permitting the continued development of Greek science, medicine, and philosophy from their older roots. The educated of the Roman Empire were fully versed in the Greek classics of poetry, history, and theater; they read and wrote and thought and spoke in Greek. A Mediterraneanwide, Greco-Roman civilization thus emerged. Key elements of this remarkable cultural synthesis survived in various forms in the Byzantine Empire, the Medieval West, and Islamic civilization as well. In that sense, Greek culture never ended. We are all still Greeks in more ways than most people could imagine!

xix

Chronology

c. 3000–c. 1100 BCE Minoan civilization flourishes on Crete and other islands of the south Aegean Sea c. 3000–c. 1000 BCE Bronze Age in Greece and the Ancient Near East c. 1700–1100 BCE

Mycenaean civilization, the earliest form of Greek culture, flourishes on mainland Greece and across the Aegean

c. 1184 BCE

Eratosthenes’ date for the legendary “Fall of Troy”

c. 1100–c. 800 BCE Greek culture enters a “Dark Age,” leaving behind little evidence in the archaeological record c. 1100–c. 600 BCE Ancient Greeks spread out from the Greek mainland and islands of the Aegean to establish colonies in Anatolia, along the coasts of the Black Sea, on Sicily and in southern Italy c. 800–490 BCE

Archaic Period in Greek history

776 BCE

Greek tradition places the founding of the Olympic Games in this year

c. 750 BCE

The Greeks develop their alphabet from Phoenician/Ugaritic models

c. 750–c. 700 BCE

The poetry of Homer and Hesiod take their final forms

c. 657 BCE

Cypselus seizes power in Corinth as tyrant

c. 650–c. 450 BCE

Era of lyric poetry, featuring Archilochus, Simonides, Tyrtaeus, Alcman, Alcaeus, Sappho, Theognis, Solon, Pindar, Bacchylides, and others

c. 600 BCE

Lydians begin the minting of coinage

c. 600–c. 450 BCE

Black Figure pottery prevalent in the Greek world

c. 594–c. 570 BCE

Era of Solon’s reforms at Athens xxi

xxii

Chronology

c. 585–c. 450 BCE

Era of Pre-Socratic philosophers, including Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and others

c. 563–546 BCE

Croesus rules Lydia

c. 549 BCE

Cyrus the Great establishes the Persian Empire

c. 546–527 BCE

Pisistratus rules Athens as tyrant

535 BCE

Battle of Alalia: Greek fleet defeated by Etruscans and Carthaginians

c. 525–c. 300 BCE

Red Figure pottery prevalent in the Greek world

522–486 BCE

Reign of Darius I over the Persian Empire

c. 514 BCE

Murder of Hipparchus the Pisistratid by Harmodius and Aristogeiton

c. 510 BCE

Hippias the Pisistratid overthrown in Athens with help of Spartans under Cleomenes I

c. 508 BCE

Cleisthenes the Alcmaeonid makes reforms at Athens

c. 500 BCE

Cleomenes I of Sparta forms the Peloponnesian League

c. 500–c. 400 BCE

Logographers like Hecateus, Hellanicus, Xanthus, and Scylax compose their local histories and geographical essays

499–494 BCE

Ionian Revolt against Persian Empire

c. 493–c. 432 BCE

Life of philosopher Empedocles of Akragas

491–478 BCE

Career of the tyrant Gelon of Syracuse

490 BCE

Battle of Marathon: Persians defeated by Greek forces

490–323 BCE

Classical Age in Greek history

486–424 BCE

Xerxes I reigns over the Persian Empire

c. 484–456 BCE

Career of the Athenian tragedian Aeschylus

480 BCE

Battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium: Persian victories over Greek forces on land and sea

480 BCE

Battle of Salamis: Greek fleet defeats Persian fleet

480 BCE

Battle of Himera: Sicilian Greeks defeat Carthaginian ground forces

480–479 BCE

Persians invade Greece

479 BCE

Battles of Plataea and Mycale: Greek victories over Persians

Chronology

478 BCE

Athenians form the Delian League

469–399 BCE

Life of Socrates

c. 468–406 BCE

Career of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles

464 BCE

Earthquake and helot revolt at Sparta

c. 460–c. 410 BCE

Career of sculptor Polyclitus of Argos

c. 458–429 BCE

Pericles as “first man” at Athens

455–406 BCE

Career of Athenian tragedian Euripides

c. 450s–420s BCE

Sophists Protagoras and Gorgias active

c. 447–438 BCE

Parthenon rebuilt under Phidias

446/5 BCE

Athens and Sparta agree to Thirty Year Peace

c. 440s–420s BCE

Careers of historian Herodotus, philosopher Democritus, and physician Hippocrates

431–404 BCE

Peloponnesian War

430–429 BCE

First strike of the plague at Athens

c. 430–c. 400 BCE

Career of historian Thucydides

c. 430–c. 386 BCE

Career of Athenian comedic playwright Aristophanes

421 BCE

Peace of Nicias puts a temporary end to the Peloponnesian War

415 BCE

Mutilation of the herms at Athens

415–413 BCE

Sicilian Expedition: Athenians attempt to seize control of Sicily

c. 406–367 BCE

Reign of Dionysius I of Syracuse

404–403 BCE

Thirty Tyrants rule over Athens

401–399 BCE

Expedition of the Ten Thousand

c. 400–c. 354 BCE

Career of historian Xenophon

399 BCE

Execution of Socrates

395–386 BCE

Corinthian War: Sparta defends it hegemony in Greece against Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and their Persian allies

c. 390s–340s BCE

Career of Athenian orator Lysias and astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidus

387 BCE

Plato founds the Academy

386 BCE

Peace of Antalcidas or the King’s Peace puts an end to the Corinthian War

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Chronology

379 BCE

Liberation of Thebes from Spartan control

378–355 BCE

Second Athenian Sea League

371 BCE

Battle of Leuctra: Theban victory over Spartans

c. 360s–c. 300 BCE

Career of sculptor Lysippus of Sicyon

359–336 BCE

Reign of Philip II in Macedon

c. 355–350 BCE

Aeneas Tacticus composes his essay on siege-craft

351–341 BCE

Athenian orator Demosthenes delivers his speeches against Philip II

c. 350s–330s BCE

Career of sculptor Praxiteles of Athens

c. 340–c. 320 BCE

Career of Athenian orator Aeschines

338 BCE

Battle of Chaeronea: Macedonian victory over Greek forces

c. 335 BCE

Aristotle founds the Lyceum

336 BCE

Assassination of Philip II

334–325 BCE

Campaigns of Alexander the Great in the Persian Empire and beyond

331 BCE

Founding of Alexandria in Egypt

c. 330–c. 240 BCE

Careers of physician-anatomists Herophilus and Erasistratus

323 BCE

Alexander dies at Babylon

323–c. 287 BCE

Botanist Theophrastus heads the Lyceum

323–277 BCE

Wars of the Successors

323–30 BCE

Hellenistic Era in Greek history

c. 320–c. 270 BCE

Careers of comedic playwright Menander of Athens and historian Timaeus of Tauromenium

c. 307 BCE

Epicurus founds his philosophical school at Athens

306–305 BCE

Alexander’s Successors declare themselves kings

305–64 BCE

Seleucid Dynasty in the Middle East

305–30 BCE

Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt

c. 300 BCE

Zeno of Citium begins Stoicism; Euclid drafts his mathematical treatise; Ptolemies establish the Library and Museum at Alexandria

294–168 BCE

Antigonid Dynasty in Macedon

c. 287–c. 269 BCE

Career of philosopher Straton of Lampsacus

c. 287–212 BCE

Life of Archimedes of Syracuse

Chronology

c. 280 BCE

Career of astronomer Aristarchus of Samos

c. 280–c. 230 BCE

Careers of Hellenistic poets Aratos, Herodas, Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius of Rhodes

279 BCE

Sack of Delphi by Galatians

c. 270 BCE

Career of mechanical engineer and inventor Ctesibius

241–133 BCE

Attalid Dynasty at Pergamum

214–205 BCE

First Macedonian War

c. 200 BCE

Careers of inventor Philo of Byzantium, mathematician Apollonius of Perga, and poet Corinna of Tanagra

200–197 BCE

Second Macedonian War

196 BCE

Roman general Flamininus declares Greek freedom

191–190 BCE

Rome’s war against Antiochus III

189 BCE

Dissolution of Aetolian League by Rome

172–168 BCE

Third Macedonian War

171 BCE

Mithradates I begins the Parthian Empire

167 BCE

Romans make Delos a duty-free port

148 BCE

Fourth Macedonian War

146 BCE

Achaean League dissolved by Rome

c. 140–c. 120 BCE

Careers of astronomer Hipparchus and historian Polybius

c. 135–c. 51 BCE

Career of philosopher Posidonius

133 BCE

Attalus III bequeaths his realm to Rome

129 BCE

Roman province of “Asia” established

86 BCE

Sack of Athens by Roman general Sulla

64–63 BCE

Pompey reorganizes the eastern Mediterranean region for Rome

c. 60–c. 30 BCE

Career of historian Diodorus Siculus

48–47 BCE

Alexandrian War: Caesar defends Cleopatra VII

30 BCE

Suicide of Cleopatra VII

c. 20 BCE–c. 20 CE Careers of historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus and geographer Strabo c. 50–c. 100 CE

Careers of philosophers Dio Chrysostom and “Longinus”

c. 62 CE

Career of mathematician and inventor Heron of Alexandria

c. 70–c. 140 CE

Career of philosopher Epictetus

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Chronology

c. 100–c. 120 CE

Career of biographer Plutarch

c. 100–c. 140 CE

Careers of physicians Soranus and Rufus and historian Appian

c. 120–c. 180 CE

Careers of poet Lucian, historian Arrian, physician Galen, orator Aelius Aristides, and sophist Herodes Atticus

124–125 CE

Roman Emperor Hadrian visits Athens and tours Greek cities

c. 140–c. 170 CE

Careers of traveler-writer Pausanias and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria

c. 157–c. 216 CE

Career of physician Galen of Pergamum

c. 170–180 CE

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius write his Meditations in Greek

c. 170–c. 190 CE

Career of satirist Lucian

c. 200–c. 270 CE

Flourishing of Second Sophistic and Neoplatonism

ARTS

INTRODUCTION Perhaps no other ancient culture invested so much talent, time, energy, and resources in the arts as did the ancient Greeks. Their achievements in that wide field became touchstones for societies around the world, and especially for those of Europe, who came to regard the Greek arts as “classic,” that is, as establishing a standard against which to compare and even measure all subsequent forms. The ancient Greeks understood almost every human endeavor as some form of art (hence, their word for it, techne¯, basically meaning “skill,” “creative facility”) and particularly those that required a keen intellect, a sense of the aesthetic, and a desire for symmetry and balance. They also conceived of the arts as including musical and theatrical performance, poetry and dance, mathematically “perfect” temple construction, sculpture and painting, and the writing of history and other inquiries into social, political, ethical, and psychological realities and expectations of human life. The Greeks viewed all these activities as essential expressions both of the self and of the group to which one belonged, whether family, clan, association, or community. The Greeks were always telling stories about themselves and their world in some manner, sometimes through a riveting piece of fiction, sometimes through an elaborate rhetorical discourse, sometimes beautifully encapsulated within a mosaic image. The arts came to humankind from the gods, the Greeks believed, and human life would have been stale without them.

ARCHITECTURE. See TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE ARISTOTLE. See PHILOSOPHY, ARISTOTLE COMEDY. See THEATER, COMEDY

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CYNICS. See PHILOSOPHY, CYNICS DANCE Ancient Greek men and women engaged in dancing (choros) for a variety of purposes, some recreational, others ritualized. Ritual dance, accompanied by singing and often by the music of the aulos (a sort of clarinet instrument often translated as “flute” in English), especially held a significant place in the Greek artistic repertoire, its form at times quite dignified and at others flagrantly obscene. Such dance brought the community together for the purpose of honoring gods, heroes, aspects of human life, and even experiences of the community itself. Many types of ritual dance figured prominently in ancient Greek culture. Some fall under the category of war dances. For instance, the Pyrrhic dance, practiced across Greece, involved male dancers armed as if for battle. Making use of their entire bodies, these men demonstrated fleetness of foot, moved their legs, arms, and especially their hands in gestures imitating those of combat, and even jumped into the air as if about to scale a wall or vault on horseback; at the end, pairs of Pyrrhic dancers seem to have traced a square with their steps in a calm and deliberate fashion (perhaps depicted on a marble relief in the Vatican Museum collection). According to the Athenian historian Xenophon, female dancers, probably professional, mimicked the Pyrrhic dance as a form of entertainment at private gatherings. In another ritual war dance, the karpeia, a male dancer or group of male dancers, characterized as a thief or thieves, attacked a dancer in the guise of a hard-working soldier-farmer; the latter danced his way into protecting himself and his farm against the assailants, defeating them, usually, by the time the dance was done. Dances in imitation of combat may have originally had an apotropaic purpose, to turn evil spirits away from Greek communities. Alternatively, they may have served as a sort of communal reminiscence of the realities of battle, reducing and abstracting them into a ballet form. In addition, Greek authors seem to have considered war dances as effective practice for the kind of physical agility and maneuvering soldiers might need in actual combat. At just about every religious event in the ancient Greek world, choruses of dancers performed. It was from such festive occasions that the chorus was also incorporated as a key element in Greek theater, whether tragic (with its serious and measured emmeleia dance) or comic (with its lewd and suggestive kordax dance) or satiric (with its sexually charged, animalistic sikkinis dance). Whereas theatrical choruses always consisted of adult male dancers (even if dressed in female costume), particular types of ritual dance outside the theatrical

Arts: Dance

context allowed younger males as well as females the opportunity to perform in a public setting. Around the altar of a divinity, choral dancing took the form of serious, reverent, highly choreographed movement. For instance, choruses danced (and sang) the dithyramb in honor of Dionysus; at Athens, groups of fifty men and fifty boys from each of the ten tribes (associations of voters) would perform the dithyramb in a circle of left or right, point and counterpoint movements (antistrophe¯). Of all the Greek communities, the Spartans (and Dorian Greeks in general) held the highest reputation for their choral dances, especially for those that incorporated elements of gymnastics. In honor of the goddess Artemis, for instance, young men and young women danced the hormos, each male-female pair holding hands or wrists, or perhaps just linked by a handkerchief, while moving in a circle and making counterpoint gestures, the men exuberant and warlike, the women reserved and peaceful. In honor of Artemis’ brother, Apollo, young men and young women at Sparta and in other Dorian Greek communities danced the hyporche¯ma in two concentric circles; one circle of dancers illustrated through their movements and gestures the lyrics of a vivacious poem being sung to music at the same time. Infamous among the ritualized religious dances across the Greek world were those in honor of Bacchus or Dionysus. Among the devoted followers of the god, intoxicated with drink, male and female Bacchic dancers could engage in some fairly wild behavior, as reported by observers (usually critical). The dancers dressed in Dionysiac symbols (ivy, laurel, or grapevine crowns on their heads, thyrsi or pinecone wands in their hands), played castanets and tambourines while spinning and gesticulating, and made loud cries to the deity. Their movements were intended to embody the changing realities of the seasons, the cycle of natural sorrow and ecstasy, of death and rebirth, so associated with the cult of Dionysus. Some Bacchic dancing even incorporated elements of the Pyrrhic dance, creating a sort of paradoxical effect, with ritualized soldier-dancers and ritualized orgiastic revelers playing off one another. Ritual dancing remained largely an amateur activity, rehearsed and engaged in by members of the community for communal ceremonies. These amateur dancers learned how to perform from experienced trainers; for instance, a piece of pottery decorated by the Phiale Painter in Athens (dated to about 440 BCE) depicts a female dance teacher instructing two young female pupils. The expectation that ritual dancers be unpaid nonprofessionals tied in with the tradition of treating ritual dances as contests; for example, at Athens, a panel of judges selected by lottery from the ten tribes would award prizes to the best performances. Professional dancers were rare in the Greek world until the Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE); even then, they tended to perform more at private parties or symposia, just as they had frequently done in previous periods, rather than at public

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events. Dancing as a professional art form can perhaps best be seen in the pantomimes, where a solo dancer (usually male), accompanied by a variety of musicians playing wind and percussion instruments, performed a sort of ballet, usually depicting a mythical tale. The Greeks as a culture valued artistic dancing very highly as a precious gift from the gods themselves, they thought, and as something engaged in by even their most famous heroes. Artistic or ritual dance, then, spoke to them of their Greek identity, tied them together within communities and across all the Greek lands. Communities validated this by expecting everyday citizens to participate in public dance, by breaking down the traditional barriers between men and women by permitting both to engage in certain ritual dances, and by rewarding the best communal dancers with recognition from the entire society. See also: Arts: Music; Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Entertainers, Popular; Festivals; Panathenaia; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups FURTHER READING Bundrick, S. D. 2005. Music and Image in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ley, G. 1991. A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lonsdale, S. H. 1993. Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Murray, P., and P. Wilson, eds. 2004. Music and the Muses: The Culture of “Mousike” in the Classical Athenian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. 1968. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. 2nd ed. Revised by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

EPIC POETRY. See POETRY, EPIC EPICUREANS. See PHILOSOPHY, EPICUREANS GOLD AND SILVER Particular artisans and artists of the ancient Greek world developed consummate skill in the processing of gold (chrysos) and silver (argyros) and in the production

Arts: Gold and Silver

from it of grandiose and gigantic, as well as intimate and intricate, objects of captivating beauty. The ancient Lydians of western Anatolia developed sophisticated methods for refining gold, which the Greeks carried forward. They mixed gold-bearing ores or natural alloys of gold and silver, like electrum, with salt and alum and heated the mixture in a furnace to between 1,000°F and 1,500°F for many hours or even days; the resulting silver chloride evaporated away as a steam that stuck to the walls of the furnace or crucible, leaving behind pure molten gold. Greek goldsmiths (chrysochooi, chrysotektones) seem to have preferred to utilize the purest gold possible for their particular projects, so that the metal would be most malleable. Still, they knew that they could make their job easier by alloying gold with metals of their choice, such as silver for a whiter gold or copper for a redder gold, both of which would also be more durable than 24-carat gold and thus yield a longer-lasting product. The Greeks found silver primarily in lead ores of various types; it was hard to separate it out from those ores because there was so little actual silver in them. As a consequence, they not only smelted the crushed ores but also cupellated them. This technique, known as far back as the Bronze Age, involved super-heating the smelt inside the furnace and then blasting it with air for rapid oxidation of the lead, which would trap lead oxide as one liquid with the silver liquid floating atop it. Instead of draining the liquids to separate them, refiners would allow them to cool and then break them apart with a hammer and chisel. Even then, the slab of silver might contain copper and gold. The refiners might leave that alone, if the silversmith (argyropoios, argyrokopos) could make use of the alloy as is; copper-silver alloys found many uses, as they were stronger than pure silver. Otherwise, if purer silver was desired, cupellation would be employed again to oxidize the copper component and then sulfur would be charged into the furnace to chemically separate or part the gold from the purified silver, another technique the Greeks adopted from the Lydians. Parting and cupellation allowed the production of the fine precious metal currency for which the Greeks, especially the Athenians, became so famous. Greek artisans long knew how to hammer gold into incredibly thin sheets; in fact, they could make one cubic centimeter of gold (about nineteen grams) thereby yield nine square meters of gold foil! Such sheets would then be cut into the desired dimensions and applied, for instance, as gold leaf to the arms, legs, or edges of furniture pieces, or formed into funeral masks. The royal burials of Bronze Age Mycenae contain a number of such paper-thin death masks dating from between 1580 and 1550 BCE. They were delicately hammered and engraved to represent the features of the deceased. The most famous, called the Mask of Agamemnon, even shows the moustache and tiny beard of the fellow whose face it once protected. This sort of work took the utmost carefulness as such thin gold was highly fragile.

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So-called Mask of Agamemnon from one of the royal graves at Mycenae, c. 1550 BCE. The Bronze Age Greeks developed exquisite skill in the creation of delicate objects from gold and silver, like this almost paper-thin death mask, fashioned in the image of the deceased and placed over his face. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Mycenaean Greek goldsmiths prepared other luxury objects for their elite clients, like gold breastplates and bronze daggers inlaid with gold and silver. An example of the latter from a tomb at Mycenae shows four warriors in gold, their weapons and armor in silver, battling against a ferocious lion in gold for the body of a fallen comrade in gold; the entire scene fits within the dimensions of roughly nine inches long and two inches wide. They also made kantharoi, or drinking horns, and gold cups using repouseé, that is, a technique in which a relief design was beaten outward from the underside of the metal or, in this case, from the inside of the cup. Such artistry in gold and silver involved skills like those in other ­metalworking— hammering, cutting, engraving, embossing, and inlaying (especially with precious stones, amber, and niello, a black alloy of sulfur with silver, lead, or copper), as well as casting, riveting, and soldering; it also required expertise in filigree and

Arts: Gold and Silver

other finely detailed decorative techniques that evidently required the use of special quartz crystals as magnifying glasses. Such skills were not lost down through the ages, but they did require the sort of patronage that could fund them. In Archaic and especially Classical Greece, this tended to come from entire Greek communities, typically in the form of gold and silverware in some way dedicated to the gods. Sanctuaries like Delphi contained entire treasuries filled with precious metal dedications (cups, tripods, cauldrons, etc.) from particular city-states (like Siphnos, for example). When the Greek alliance defeated Persian forces at the Battle of Plataea (479 BCE), the member states commissioned a monument at Delphi in honor of the god Apollo. It consisted of an eight-foot tall three-headed serpent of bronze topped by a golden tripod cauldron. Here we should also recall the talents of the Athenian sculptor Phidias in the mid-fifth century BCE, who had a reputation for gigantic, complex masterpieces in ivory and gold, known as chryselephantine work, where sizable portions of the figures consisted of these precious materials as well as bronze surrounding a wooden framework. His forty-three-foot-high chryselephantine cult statue inside the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (c. 435 BCE) had sandals of gold, a lifelike robe constructed out of gold panels, a throne with gold ornamentation atop a pedestal decorated with gold reliefs, behind a footstool supported by golden lions. His thirty-seven-foot-tall Virgin Athena inside the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis (c. 447–438 BCE), with its golden tunic, golden helmet, and other golden adornments, required more than a ton of gold plating atop the bronze plating that covered the wooden core! Such dedication of the talents of artists in gold and silver to religious purposes continued into Hellenistic times, but elite patronage of their work also gradually picked up pace again, as in the Bronze Age. For instance, in the late fourth century BCE in Tanagra, commemorative statuettes placed in tombs, like the Woman with Hat and Mantle (now in Berlin’s Staatliche Antikensammlung), reveals the application of delicate gold foil to a terracotta base. The royal tombs of Macedon provide an even better illustration from that same time period. Here King Philip II and members of his family were interred with such items as an iron cuirass (decorated with engraved bands of gold and embossed lion heads), a gold cover for a quiver (ornamented with relief scenes of warriors, fleeing women, and sanctuary shrines), as well as silver strainers and urns (with incredibly lifelike engraved images, like the head of Silenus) as would be used in burial rituals; the tombs also contained gold larnaxes (chests containing the cremated remains of the deceased), each weighing close to twenty pounds, embossed with the star of Macedon as well as delicate rosettes and vine motifs. Finally, the so-called Rogozen Treasure, discovered in Bulgaria (Thrace to the ancient Greeks), likely belonged to an elite Thracian family that had collected precious items over a long period of time. The finds

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date to the fifth and fourth centuries BCE and include three drinking cups, over fifty jugs and pitchers, and more than one hundred libation bowls, all in silver or silver-gilt; these are the sorts of items that wealthy Greeks would have had on hand for celebrations, especially for symposia. The workmanship and motifs, and even some of the inscriptions on these objects, are Greek, meaning that either Greek gold-and-silver artists working in Thrace made them, or Greek-trained Thracians did so, or that these items came from Greece as gifts or spoils of some sort (or a combination of all three, considering the number of items and the span of time in which they were produced). Certainly, Greek techniques and styles in gold and silver spread across the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, generating duplication and innovation. When we look at the finds from Etruscan tombs, like the gold wine cup from the seventh-century BCE Bernardini tomb of Palestrina, with its sphinx handles, we recognize elements from the famed Corinthian smiths. When we visit the dining room of the Roman House of the Vettii in Pompeii and see the fresco of little cupids round their miniature furnace making shields and jewelry of gold using their hammers, tongs, punches, and blowpipes, surely we are gazing at a Greek, as much as a Roman, gold-smithing scene. And when we examine two small gold medallions of the Aboukir treasure minted for the Roman Emperor Caracalla, one exquisitely portraying Queen Olympias of Macedon in profile, the other her son Alexander the Great in an extraordinary frontal pose, we recognize the continued expertise into the third century CE of Greek precious metal artists from places like Ephesus or Perinthus. See also: Arts: Mosaics; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Currency; Metal-Refining; Metalworking; Mining; Trade; Weights and Measures; Fashion and Appearance: Headgear; Jewelry; Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Science and Technology: Exploration FURTHER READING Boardman, J. 1995. The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Craddock, P. T. 1995. Early Metal Mining and Production. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Healy, J. F. 1978. Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. London: Thames & Hudson. Lamb, W. 1929. Ancient Greek and Roman Bronzes. Chicago: Argonaut. La Niece, S., and P. T. Craddock, eds. 1993. Metal Plating and Patination: Cultural, Historical and Technical Developments. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Arts: History Mattusch, C. 1988. Greek Bronze Statuary: From the Beginnings through the Fifth Century B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mattusch, C. 1996. Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oliver, A. 1977. Silver for the Gods. Toledo, OH: Toledo Museum of Art. Ramage, A., and P. T. Craddock. 2000. King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strong, D. E. 1966. Greek and Roman Gold and Silver Plate. London: Methuen. Treister, M. Y. 1996. The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History. Leiden: Brill. Tylecote, R. F. 1987. The Early History of Metallurgy in Europe. London and New York: Longman. Valeva, J., E. Nankov, and D. Graninger, eds. 2015. A Companion to Ancient Thrace. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Vickers, M., and D. Gill. 1994. Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Williams, D., ed. 1997. The Art of the Greek Goldsmith. London: British Museum Press. Williams, D., and J. Ogden. 1994. Greek Gold: Jewelry of the Classical World. New York: Abrams.

HISTORY The ancient Greeks did not invent the notion of recording human events, but they did establish a new approach to doing so, much broader in focus and context, much more personal in authorship, and much more humanistic in emphasis; they came to call this approach “historia,” which we might translate as inquiry or research. Ancient peoples familiar to the Greeks, like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, and Hebrews, recorded their own histories long before the Greeks did. Such historical accounts took the form of chronicles, that is, fairly straightforward narratives of events, usually proceeding year-by-year within the reigns of successive sovereigns. Chronicles were written by uncredited authors (likely scribes) and with the official sanction of the ruler; therefore, they rarely incorporated information unflattering to the ruler, and, when they did, such information was often turned somehow to the ruler’s advantage. Thus, ancient chronicles concealed the personal viewpoint of an independent historical author, on the one hand, and also lacked an unbiased perspective, on the other. Furthermore, chronicles almost always sought to demonstrate how connected a sovereign was to the divine plan of the universe, even if they proved that the ruler was straying from that divine mission. The examples from the Hebrew Bible (or Christian Old Testament) bear witness to this. Whoever the author or authors of the Books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Chronicles, they consistently focused on the hand of God in the history

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of the Israelites; there was no interest or concern in explaining events strictly in human terms. This was where the ancient Greeks came in. Beginning in the sixth century BCE, Greek philosophers sought to explain the functioning of the universe and human nature by means of reason and logic, to demystify the world. Their work seems to have inspired various authors of local history and ethnography, whom we call logopoioi, to rationalize local myths about peoples and places through analysis and collection of more firsthand data. Like the philosophers, these writers wanted to know, or at least get close to knowing, the truth of what had really happened. Scylax of Caryanda had this in mind, for instance, when he actually sailed around the Arabian peninsula into the Indian Ocean in order to write his periplous, or travelogue, c. 510 BCE; Charon of Lampsacus became a well-known expert among the Greeks on the affairs and customs of Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, and Crete, as Xanthus of Sardis was on Lydia, because they both traveled in these regions as much as they could to collect direct information. Hellanicus of Lesbos (c. 480–c. 395 BCE) was one of the most celebrated of these logopoioi, a first-rate mythographer and ethnographer of Greece and western Asia; he attempted to make sense of many disparate forms of historical information in the creation of his works. In composing the first local history of Athens (known as an atthis), for instance, Hellanicus was not satisfied with just the local stories but made use of the lists of athletic victors and magistrates to corroborate the dating of key people and events. His near-contemporary, Hecateus of Miletus (fl. c. 499 BCE) also stands out here. His book, Genealogies, approached legendary stories of local families and heroes with a healthy dose of skepticism and a radically individualized perspective; as he put it, “I write what seems to me to be true, for the Greeks have many tales which, as it appears to me, are absurd.” In another work, the Journey around the World, he put together the earliest known study of geography, covering places and peoples then known to the Greeks in western Asia, Egypt, Libya, and Europe, inspired by the work of earlier logopoioi and early Greek philosophers. These efforts fed directly into the Histories by Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484–440/425 BCE), often referred to still as the “Father of History.” Perhaps exiled from his home city, Herodotus traveled widely within the world of the ancient Greeks, especially among their city-states in Asia Minor (western Turkey), but he also evidently experienced life in Egypt and Syria, and probably along the Black Sea coast, and even as far as Babylon. At first planning, apparently, simply to outdo his predecessors in creating a major ethnographic work, Herodotus along the way turned to create the earliest-known coherent study of a major event from human history: the early fifth-century wars between the Greeks and the Persian Empire.

Arts: History

Herodotus could have concentrated all his efforts on the military aspects of the conflicts, but this was evidently not enough for him; he sought to explain how and why the conflicts had ever taken place and what they meant to the respective cultures involved. So he visited many important and relevant sites (what the Greeks called “autopsy,” seeing for oneself ) and mingled with many prominent persons, especially eyewitnesses from the wars, whom he personally interviewed for his book. He searched out the oral traditions, memories, and local chronicles, even the tall tales and the cover-ups, as well as official documents of all sorts. In the end, Herodotus included just about everything he could find about those peoples involved in any way in the wars, which led him off on many interesting digressions from his main narrative. He also left much of it rather raw; even though he had evidently poured over his information, inquiring into motivations, actions, and decisions, into the relationship of cause and effect, looking for the reasons behind the history, for the recognizable lessons and patterns in it, Herodotus still chose to present everything to his readers, inserting himself into the mix only to express his preferences for this or that version of events, this or that explanation for them. Much he left for the readers to decide. Herodotus was building on the still fairly recent intellectual trend toward reasoned truth of the Greek philosophers and local mythographers; he also built on the more established traditions of the Greek epic poets, inserting poetry and inventing elaborate and eloquent speeches for his historical “characters” to deliver. He examined the human causes behind events but also admitted the intervention of divine forces, such as Fate, and took religious beliefs, taboos, and superstitions seriously, especially in reference to the oracle of Delphi. Although largely impartial and broad-minded about various cultures, Herodotus nonetheless showed clear favoritism toward Athens, his adopted home, and couched the Persian Wars in a propagandistic vein as a grand confrontation between Greek-style freedom and oriental tyranny. These realities have earned him another label, “Father of Lies.” Over the course of nearly the next thousand years of Greco-Roman history, Herodotus inspired others to follow in his tradition of historical writing. No one duplicated his approach exactly, and some attempted to reject it, but they did still learn from him. His most famous successor was also one of his most immediate, the Athenian Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400 BCE). Thucydides tried to capture events “as they happened”; he was old enough to serve in the Peloponnesian War on the Athenian side (and as a general no less), so he relied on his own personal recollections of the conflict, starting to write his account as soon as troubles began and continuing to write and edit right up to the time of his death. Like Herodotus, Thucydides used interviews and documents to further construct his narrative; like Herodotus, he included material on the period before the conflict in order to

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contextualize it for his audience. Like Herodotus, Thucydides had his biases; even though he claimed to be different than his predecessor in searching for the “real truth,” indeed he could not escape the prejudices associated with being a wealthy Athenian citizen and ardent young supporter of Pericles, the principal architect of the rising Athenian power that had precipitated the Peloponnesian War. Since the nineteenth century, Thucydides has been dubbed the “Father of Scientific History,” primarily because he rejected much of Herodotus’ often digressing, circuitous, storytelling style in favor of what he himself identified as a more “serious,” critical analysis of the facts; he sought to arrive at a historical account that could stand the test of time and teach lessons to statesmen of all generations. What this meant to him in practice, however, was that he would not “trouble” the reader with multiple versions of the same event or incident, varying according to sources and witnesses, nor would he bother to identify his sources of evidence. Instead, Thucydides presented his conclusions without much, if any, indication of controversial or contradictory versions. These conclusions also included assessment of motivations and causes according to a set of standards picked up from the Sophists of his day; as a result, Thucydides became obsessed with, and well known for, distinguishing the prophasia, apparent reasons, from the aitia, root causes. Nevertheless, Thucydides did compromise some of his vaunted realism and accuracy for dramatic effect and intellectual impact, especially in order to better reveal the “lessons of history,” of “predictable humanity.” He thus combined the Sophistic understanding of humanity with that attained by the contemporary Athenian theater (incorporating its debating style, its speeches, its frequent arguments over custom/nomos and nature/physis, and its protagonists and antagonists) to achieve a new style of historical writing. Greek (and for that matter Roman) authors of history, whether Xenophon of Athens in the fourth century BCE or Polybius of Megalopolis in the second, whether Arrian of Nicomedia in the second century CE or Procopius of Caesarea in the sixth, continued to take their methods and their emphases from either Herodotus or Thucydides, or both, adding elements from the educational, political, and cultural contexts of their own times. Some attempted to set down interpretations of significant events from their own lifetimes, while others focused attention on more distant times; some hoped more to explore, entertain, expose, while others sought more to instruct, warn, enlighten. They all intended to record the past so that later generations would not forget it and to understand the human condition—the great changes and continuities of human events—through the humanistic medium of investigation and writing known thanks to them as history. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Rhetoric; Sophists; Theater, Tragedy; Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE);

Arts: Literature, Hellenistic

Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Cosmology; Education; Exploration; Geography FURTHER READING Adcock, F. E. 1963. Thucydides and His History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bosworth, A. B. 1988. From Arrian to Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Butterfield, H. 1981. The Origins of History. New York: Basic Books. Cameron, A. 1985. Procopius and the Sixth Century. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cornford, F. M. 1965. Thucydides Mythistoricus. London and New York: Routledge. De Romilly, J. 1963. Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism. London: Blackwell. Drews, R. 1973. The Greek Accounts of Eastern History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Evans, J. A. S. 1991. Herodotus, Explorer of the Past. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Grant, M. 1994. The Ancient Historians. New York: Barnes and Noble. Gray, V. 1989. The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hart, J. 1982. Herodotus and Greek History. London: Croom Helm. Hunter, V. J. 1973. Thucydides, the Artful Reporter. New York: Hakkert. Lateiner, D. 1989. The Historical Method of Herodotus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Marincola, J., ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Oxford: Blackwell. Pearson, L. 1939. Early Ionian Historians. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sacks, K. 1981. Polybius on the Writing of History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Walbank, F. W. 1990. Polybius. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Westlake, H. D. 1969. Essays on Greek Historians and Greek Historiography. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

LITERATURE, HELLENISTIC The period in Greek history that scholars refer to as the Hellenistic Era, typically delimited by the years 323 BCE (the death of Alexander the Great) and 30 BCE (the death of Cleopatra VII), witnessed the development of quite particular forms of satire as well as the romance novel, and especially poetry. These had deep roots in earlier expressions of the Greek voice and themselves had considerable influence on later generations of Greek and non-Greek authors. Although Roman authors later claimed to have invented satire, surely they found much inspiration for their efforts in the satirical writings of the Hellenistic Greeks. The latter were evidently founded in one of the latest philosophical

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movements, Cynicism, and found expression in the form of diatribe and parody, which had immense popularity among Hellenistic audiences. The diatribe was a street-corner sermon that typically lobbed bitter ridicule at the rich, the elite, the tyrannical, and the complacent, sparing no one of status, but instead praising the simple morality and humility of the poor and downtrodden. Sotades of Maronea, for example, who lived in the first half of the third century BCE, ridiculed the powerful, especially Ptolemy II of Egypt, who may have ordered Sotades to be drowned as a punishment for his open attacks on the king’s private life. Greek authors had engaged in parody, making light of the supposedly serious through mocking, exaggerated imitation, as far back as Homer, but authors of Hellenistic times took it to a new level. Timon of Phlius (c. 320–c. 230 BCE), a follower of Pyrrhon the Skeptic, lampooned the dramatics of Homer, the dogmatism of philosophers from other schools of thought, and the elitist attitudes of scholars at the Museum in Alexandria. Menippus of Gadara (c. 330–c. 250 BCE) parodied the mythological theme of descent into Hades and ascent into the heavens. Hellenistic satire, in its derisiveness and humor for serious purpose, perhaps served as a reaction against the moral looseness of certain forms of poetry at the time. Yet satirists like Sotades and Timon also excelled in cinaedic poetry, verses of a highly sexual or vulgar nature, quite popular at the symposia and in the street theater of their day. Hellenistic poets rejected the grand historical focus of their predecessors in Archaic and Classical times in favor of more “down to earth” themes (likely influenced by trends in Cynicism and Skepticism), such as rural life, common laborers, domestic experiences, as well as more of a local focus, on legends, myths, rituals, and customs of a particular locale. Hence, their works come off as much more sentimental and, in some ways, more personal than the writings of earlier generations of Greek poets. Yet these same poets expressed themselves in a style that mimicked that of their predecessors, depending on many allusions to their texts, and they employed very sophisticated vocabulary, all of which appealed primarily to a well-educated readership. In the third century BCE, Apollonius of Rhodes revived the epic genre with his Argonautica, romantic, human, emotional, deliberately innovative in terms of variations in style, details, transitions, a new sort of epic for a new age. He emphasized etiology, paid much attention to natural settings and to children (especially the spoiled Eros, who had to be bribed to do anything—a favorite theme in Hellenistic times), and provided emerging heroes, like Jason, and ambivalent heroines, like Medea. Clearly writing for an educated audience, Apollonius referenced the latest scientific discoveries especially in medicine and geography, borrowed heavily from history and theater, and linguistically from Homer. None of this is surprising

Arts: Literature, Hellenistic

when we remember that the scholar Apollonius served as director of the Library of Alexandria. Most Hellenistic poets turned to writing much shorter works, especially epigrams, tightly packed, highly allusive, and carefully crafted. The center of activity for this was Alexandria, which drew writers from all over the Greek world. Theocritus of Syracuse, for instance, moved there in the third century BCE. He composed his Idylls, vignettes of everyday experiences bathed in references to other works of poetry, frequently taken as models. He introduced bucolic poetry and focused on idealization of country life, which perhaps reflected in some way his own nostalgic yearning for home. Around the same time, Callimachus of Cyrene came to Alexandria as well, where he produced longer poems (like his Hymns, celebrations of ritual, festival, and divine identity), but especially many epigrams (like the one in which a passerby asks Charidas of Cyrene to speak from beneath his own tombstone about life after death). These poets set the stage for many others, who especially picked up on the theme of romantic love in their predecessors’ epigrams. Callimachus had told love tales in a superficial way, without enthusiasm, betraying a deliberately sophisticated detachment, but two centuries later, Meleager of Gadara (early first century BCE), wrote intimately of the “noise” and “sweet tears” of love that neither nighttime nor daytime allow to cease. His contemporary Parthenius of Nicaea pulled together a whole collection of Greek love stories for eager Roman readers. Much of the inspiration for this sort of poetry went further back to the emotive verses on love, family, and friendship composed by Sappho of Lesbos in the sixth century BCE. Hellenistic writers appreciated her personalizing style, her linguistic sophistication, and her passionate expressiveness. Female poets of the Hellenistic times, for instance, adapted Sappho’s approach to the concerns of their day. Erinna of Telos (fourth century BCE) attained a strong reputation especially for her long poem entitled The Distaff about a young girl, who in mourning the loss of her close friend who had only recently married, tried to console herself with tasks and joys of youth. The girl speaks of the terrible shame that she feels from still being alive and reminisces about the dolls they played with and the games they engaged in in the garden and even the scary stories told by their parents to get them to behave well. As an experimenter in mixing her own Doric dialect with Aeolic elements in the same poem, Erinna was a forerunner to many Hellenistic poets. Anyte of Tegea (early third century BCE) earned great renown for generations for her funereal poetry, as well as her sensitivity to the natural world. She composed epitaphs for three young women who heroically committed suicide during the Galatian attack on Miletus (c. 277 BCE) and for several young women who

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died before they were old enough to marry. Her contemporary Nossis of Locri in southern Italy composed dedicatory epigrams for the Greek goddesses. These accompanied offerings by women of their weaving to Hera or their paintings to Aphrodite, and their requests for aid in childbirth to Artemis. She even commemorated the wealthy courtesan Polyarchis who dedicated a golden statue of Aphrodite to the goddess (perhaps in her own likeness!). Male poets got into this Sapphic genre as well, like Antipater of Sidon (late second century BCE) who wrote of young women dedicating to Athena the instruments of wool-working, to Artemis their toys, and to Aphrodite their sandals, hairnets, fans, veils, and jewelry, all usually in honor of their impending nuptials. His style of description evokes the most intimate details, like the delicate comfort of footwear, the unruliness of youthful hair, the spiderlike intricacy of woven cloth, or the coiling of a golden ornament around a slender ankle. Military themes continued to play some part in Hellenistic poetry as they had in previous eras, evidenced by the over one hundred literary epigrams of Leonidas of Tarentum (early third century BCE). He wrote, for instance, from the first-­ person perspective of a warrior charioteer who expresses his deep sense of shame and embarrassment that undamaged helmets, unbroken spears, and clean shields have been placed in the temple of Ares, saying that such things belong in the bedroom of newlyweds and denying that they could ever be his. Female poets of Hellenistic times began for the first time to address these same themes, as when Anyte of Tegea composed an epigrammatic epitaph for a soldier named Proarchus, in which she commemorated his bravery and his patriotic defense of his homeland. Politically charged poetry continued as well, as evidenced by the work of Alcaeus of Messene, who bitterly attacked King Philip V of Macedon in the early second century BCE, accusing him of murdering friends and poets through poisoning and of leading to their death tens of thousands of Greek soldiers, and called on the gods to protect Olympus from capture by Philip. King Philip responded in kind with a threatening epigram of his own! In quite a different vein, a court poet and scholar to the Macedonian dynasty, Aratus of Cilicia (third century BCE), turned the sophisticated theories of contemporary astronomy and meteorology into celebrated and well-known verse in his Phaenomena, read second only to the works of Homer in schools across the ancient Greek world. Perhaps most intriguing among the poetry of Hellenistic times is the apparent competition in ideas about life found in two poems of the early to mid-third century BCE. In one, Poseidippos of Pella, among the foremost epigrammatists of his time, bewails that life is full of arguments and crooks in the marketplace, worries at home, toil in the countryside, danger at sea, misery for the poor, troubles for the married and child-ridden but loneliness and despair for the unmarried and

Arts: Literature, Hellenistic

childless, weakness in old age, and foolishness in youth. In other words, better never to have been born. In the other, Metrodorus responds by urging a proactive approach to life, with all its chances for excellence, and point-for-point refuting the pessimism of Poseidippos with the optimism of seeking honor in the marketplace, enjoying relaxation at home and the beauties of nature outside, profit on the high seas, an easy single life, lovely children, strength in youth and piety in old age! By the third century BCE, epigrams and longer poems began to appear in collections (we would call them poetry books), perhaps most famous of which was Meleager’s Stephanos (Garland), which contains his own and many others’ works covering two centuries. Scholars and students of Greek history understand that Hellenistic culture continued well beyond the conventional end point of the Hellenistic Era in 30 BCE. Thus, the romance novel, developed by Greek authors under the Roman Emperors of the second through fourth centuries CE, certainly falls within the category of Hellenistic literature. Inspired by elements from pre-Hellenistic Greek drama, history, epic, comedy, and lyric poetry, the works of Chariton, Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, and others also drew heavily on the themes and motifs of Hellenistic epic and epigram. A characteristically Hellenistic fascination for metamorphosis, twists of fate, abandonment, youth, adulthood, and rites of passage, pastoral simplicity, natural settings, ritual, and exoticism permeate these stories of lost love found. Developments in Hellenistic literature had their foundation in the strengthening of education in terms of curriculum and its expansion in terms of access. Libraries proliferated under elite, civic, and royal patronage in Hellenistic (and Roman) times. Communities across the Greco-Roman world imitated the theatrical festivals of Athens and professional actors brought stage plays to a widespread audience. These communities also convened public literary contests, awarding prizes to successful authors. All of this contributed to a more literate public hungry for interesting and intricate reading material from more sophisticated writers and, as the writings of Callimachus make clear, an increase in vociferous rivalry between those writers and their critics. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Skeptics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Carpentry; Fishing; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Piracy and Banditry; Travel; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Adultery; Blended Families; Burial; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Death and Dying; Friendship and Love; Homosexuality; Men; Mourning/Memorialization; Sexuality; Weddings; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Housing and Community: Country Life;

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Household Religion; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Leisure Activities; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Magic; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Botany; Education; Exploration; Geography; Greek Language Groups; Inscriptions FURTHER READING Branham, R. B., and M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, eds. 1996. The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cameron, A. 1995. Callimachus and His Critics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Canfora, L. 1990. The Vanished Library. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Fantuzzi, M., and R. L. Hunter. 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fraser, P. M. 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gutzwiller, K. 1998. Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Gutzwiller, K. J., ed. 2005. The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hutchinson, G. O. 1988. Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lefkowitz, M. R. 1981. The Lives of the Greek Poets. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Nicoll, A. 1963. Masks, Mimes and Miracles: Studies in the Popular Theatre. New York: Cooper Square Publishers. Schmeling, G., ed. The Novel in the Ancient World. Leiden: Brill. Webster, T. B. L. 1964. Hellenistic Poetry and Art. London: Methuen.

LYRIC POETRY. See POETRY, LYRIC MOSAICS Inspired by examples from the Ancient Near East, artists in the ancient Greek world experimented with mosaic art (lithokolle¯tos, lithostroˉtos). In their own productions, they clearly sought to replicate, and perhaps even surpass, the genius of the great masters of Greek painting. Affluent private citizens commissioned most of the mosaics known to us, as decorations for the floors and walls in their homes; many also chose mosaics as embellishments on the walls of their tombs. Since Greek mosaics depict largely scenes from mythology, daily life, and the natural

Arts: Mosaics

world, they provide us with invaluable glimpses into the aesthetic values of the ancient Greeks. In the cultures of the Near East, going back to the third millennium BCE, artists made mosaic images in a variety of ways, sometimes using bitumen (natural asphalt) to apply pieces of stone, shell, or animal bone to a surface, sometimes using a mortar of wet clay to apply large brick tiles, glazed to present different colors. Such mosaics decorated the walls of palaces and temples, as well as the surfaces of personal items. The idea likely spread through trade contacts to the Minoan artists in the Aegean region, who created their mortar out of either wet clay or limestone plaster, embedding pebbles into the mortar to decorate the floors of their palace complexes; pebbles of various shapes and colors were readily available in the river valleys and especially along the seashore of the Greek world. The Mycenaean Greeks (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) who came after the Minoans continued this aesthetic tradition, which then disappeared until reinvented (or learned from outside Greece) by the artists of the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) for the floors of Greek temples. By the Classical Age (c. 490–323 BCE), temples and other grand public buildings might have mosaic features in other places as well. For instance, on their Acropolis, the Athenians erected an unusual shrine known as the Erechtheum (c. 421–406 BCE). The bases of some of its columns included patterned inlay of colorful glass pieces, as well as gilding, both common techniques of mosaic art rather than typical architectural sculpture. Still, in the Classical Age and the Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE), wealthy Greek houses possessed the greatest number of mosaics, especially on their floors. They might be found in any room of such houses, but typically they decorated the dining room where the man of the house entertained his male guests. They also adorned the floors of bathhouses owned by communities or by private organizations, like the Centaur Bath in Corinth (dating to the late fifth century BCE). At least as far back as the fourth century BCE, Greek mosaicists created for their patrons not just plain floors with geometric patterns but with complex figural designs. The so-called House of the Triton on the island of Delos provides an example. Whoever owned that house in the second century BCE commissioned the decoration of a floor with mosaic rectangles of different sizes and colors (including a wave pattern), one rectangle or band enclosing another. Within the white band at the center of these rectangles were two mosaic panels (emble¯mata, sing. emble¯ma); one of the two panels survives and depicts a female triton with the god Eros flying overhead. Other such figured panels survive in ancient Greek houses, from Sicyon in southern Greece to Olynthus in northern Greece. We have some fine fourth-century examples from the ancient Macedonian capital at Pella, for instance. The so-called

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Mosaic depicting a lion hunt from a residence in Pella, one of the capitals of ancient Macedon. Designed as a pavement made from mortar and colored pebbles around 300 BCE, this mosaic may portray the young prince Alexander (later known as the Great) engaging in the hunt together with his closest friend, Hephaistion. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

House of Helen’s Abduction there contains a famous Stag Hunt mosaic; the socalled House of Dionysus contains not only the Dionysus Riding a Panther (for which the house is named) but also a mosaic depicting a lion hunt (perhaps commissioned by the Macedonian king Philip II himself and showing his famous son, Alexander the Great). Older or neighboring civilizations may have given Greeks the original idea of making mosaics, and some of those cultures may have taught the Greeks how to incorporate repetitive geometric patterns (like waves or meanders) into them, but it seems clear that it was Greek painters who provided the inspiration and the motifs for the figural mosaics that spread across the Greek world and beyond. Like painters troweling layers of wet plaster onto a wall and applying pigments to it, Greek mosaicists laid out a rectangular bed of wet plaster onto a floor (sometimes several layers thick, including finer and coarser materials), embedding not just dark and light pebbles (the oldest color scheme used), but pebbles of multiple colors, as well as carefully crafted strands of terracotta and lead, cubes of colored glass imported from Egypt and the Near East, and especially cubes (abakiskoi in Greek, tesserae in Latin) and even flakes of marble in various shades, which, of course, the Greek territories possessed in abundance. Mosaicists used not only the colors but also the various sizes of these materials to create the desired patterns and placed these building bits in subtly different directions in order to produce illusionistic effects, especially shading, foreshortening, and overlapping to simulate depth and three-dimensionality.

Arts: Mosaics

Few mosaicists signed their works in ancient times, and authors recorded little about them, in comparison with contemporary painters. Sosus of Pergamum received some recognition, his works appearing in many copies by later artists. One of his famous motifs was a group of birds drinking at a fountain within a garden setting or from a bowl sitting on a table; people liked to place such images on the walls of their homes to brighten up the typically dim interiors. His other popular theme was the unswept floor, illustrating the scraps from a meal littering the floor of a dining room; people liked to adorn their dining room floor with this sort of image. Probably the most famous mosaic from ancient times is that discovered on the floor of the so-called House of the Faun in Pompeii. This huge work, consisting of more than a million tesserae, depicts the Battle of Issus (333 BCE), the first victory of Alexander the Great over Persian forces commanded in person by their king, Darius III. Although it dates to the middle of the second century BCE, scholars believe that it is actually a copy of a lost original, probably an original painting; it follows the traditions of Greek painting especially from the fourth century in attempting to convey intense drama and energy, as well as some sense of depth through foreshortening and inclusion of half-hidden figures. Moreover, the faces of Alexander and Darius are essentially portraits, like those typical of Greek sculpted busts, intended to capture not only the emotional and mental states of the individuals but also their fundamental character traits. By Roman times, dazzling mosaics were created by Greek artists or in the Greek tradition all over the Empire; they still tended to be clustered in private homes and public gathering places, and their emble¯mata illustrated a wide range of subject matter. Despite the great advances in figural and narrative presentation across the centuries of Greek (and Roman history), though, certain themes recurred even more than those from myth, history, and theater. On the one hand, symbols to ward off evil forces and bring positive energy into a place can be seen as far back as the Centaur Bath from Corinth in the fifth century BCE (with its wheel of fortune) and as far forward as House S from Antioch in the second century CE (with its Lucky Hunchback and talismans against the Evil Eye). On the other hand, exquisitely detailed images from nature also had wide appeal, whether elaborate floral designs like those from fourth-century BCE Sicyon or peacocks like those from third-century CE Ephesus. Mosaics, then, filled a practical need in the Greek and Roman worlds for interior color and brightness, a social need for indicators of wealth and status, a psychological need for magical and religious symbolism, and an intellectual need for cultural expression. See also: Arts: Painting, Walls/Panels; Temple Architecture; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Housing

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Architecture; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Burn, L. 2004. Hellenistic Art. Los Angeles: Getty Publications. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Dunbabin, K. 1999. Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Griffiths Pedley, J. 2007. Greek Art and Archaeology. Upper Saddle, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Osborne, R. 1998. Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pollitt, J. J. 1986. Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MUSIC The ancient Greeks regarded music (mousike¯) as an essential element of any solid education, second only to the triad of reading, writing, and arithmetic. They were not as interested in becoming famous as modern students of music might be, especially since there was little remuneration in fame in those days when compared to today. Instead, Greek teachers encouraged their pupils to learn music, both singing and playing instruments, for the intellectual and psychological benefits. In addition, music probably always had a very prominent role among the Greeks in their religious and patriotic rituals and ceremonies, where soloists and choral groups of various ages performed to honor the gods and the community. In a sort of extrapolation from this, Greeks came to identify music as a means of participating in the cosmic order of things, and many came to believe that the universe operated in a sort of musical harmony (harmonia, originally meaning “tuning”). Philosophers especially made much of the parallels between melodious music and the wellfunctioning state, society, and individual. Many of our terms for the components of stringed instruments, and even for the instruments themselves, come from the Greeks, since they were masters of such instruments. For instance, the word “guitar” derives, through Arabic and Spanish, from the Greek kithara, a handheld string instrument, shaped roughly like the letter “u.” Tradition ascribed creation of the kithara to Apollo; it was an instrument especially used in his worship, as well as in that of Athena. It figured most prominently in the musical events at public ceremonies across the Greek world, perhaps imported in its earliest form from Asia Minor. The kithara’s sounding-box and the arms extending up from it were constructed from sheets of wood, ivory, or metal, the front and back slightly separated so as to leave a hollow space inside as an acoustic sounding chamber. A varied number of strings were stretched from

Arts: Music

the bottom or middle of the sounding-box up across the empty space between the arms, where they were attached to a yoke, a small wooden beam that joined the arms near the top. Tradition said that the Greek god Hermes entertained himself one day by drawing strings across an empty turtle shell and making sounds with it; this lyre (lyra) was most commonly used in the worship of the god Dionysus and young children began their practice in music with it. In real life, Greeks did actually make many lyres out of turtle shells with two, long animal horns or curved pieces of wood fastened as arms where the turtle’s front legs would have been. They then attached strings to the underside of the shell and stretched them across that side to join up with the yoke that connected the horns or wooden arms together near their points. The Greeks also had something resembling the modern harp, which they called sambuke¯; it was small enough to rest on the musician’s lap. Most likely, the original of this instrument came from the Ancient Near East, where many similar examples have been identified from the Egyptian and Syrian cultures. Greek musicians played the lyre, the kithara, and the harp by plucking with their fingers or with a ple¯ctron, a sort of long pick. It seems that in many cases they had to play from both sides of the instrument, so proficiency with both hands was a must. The wind instruments of the ancient Greeks consisted of horns, clarinets, and flutes. They made the latter out of reeds, sometimes joining several together side by side by means of lashings or wax to create a syrinx, or panpipe, named for the god Pan who traditionally invented it. This instrument tended to be played margin­ ally in Greek music; it was associated with the wilderness and with the wilder divinities, like Pan and Dionysus, and so it featured in the “less civilized” worship of those beings. On the other hand, the aulos figured much more prominently in many forms of Greek music, especially in central Greece where the aulos was the most celebrated instrument and in southern Greece where the Spartans accompanied their military exercises and battles with the aulos. Its closest analogs today are the oboe or clarinet, though many forms of the aulos would not seem familiar to today’s musicians. Its standard form consisted of two reed pipes attached together by a mouthpiece but angled away from one another to create a kind of triangular shape; the right-hand pipe had fewer holes and made lower notes, while the left-hand pipe had more holes and produced higher notes. Over time, auloi varied greatly in design, having or not having keys, sliders, turning sleeves, bell-shaped openings, or complex mouthpieces, and in materials used, such as reed, wood, metal, or ivory; even the two pipes of the same double aulos might look radically different from one another and thus produce very different sounds. Playing that instrument consequently required great skill.

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At religious ceremonies and in the midst of battle, Greeks also made use of the salpinx, the horn or trumpet. It was typically quite simple in design, consisting of a long tube of metal flared at one end in a variety of ways, with a mouthpiece attached to the other end. Some sources suggest that skilled salpinx players could produce mellower sounds from the instrument, suitable for outdoor parties. Percussion instruments had less currency in the traditional world of ancient Greek music than they have had in medieval or modern times. Typically, Greeks made use of castanets (krembala, krotala), cymbals (kymbala), tambourines (rhoptra), drums (tympana), and such in ceremonies that they regarded as more akin to “barbaric” times or cultures; thus, they were common in the wilder worship of Dionysus and in the rituals honoring gods imported from abroad, such as the fertility goddess Cybele from Asia Minor. Such instruments also figured in recreational dances among the Greeks generally. Inventors during the Hellenistic period also experimented with musical instruments whose sounds were produced by pneumatic action, that is, the mechanical manipulation of air flow. Ctesibius of Alexandria in the third century BCE, for example, famously invented the pipe organ. It consisted of a chamber filled with boiling water topped by a series of panpipes connected to a keyboard; when he manipulated the keys, he opened the valves of the pipes, allowing steam from the water reservoir to escape through the pipes, thus producing sounds. Ancient Greeks regarded all these instruments as primarily accompaniments to the vocalization of sound; music was first and foremost about singing. Traditionally, each region of the Greek world developed its own style of musical harmony, both vocal and instrumental, known as modes; over the course of time, singing styles supposedly adopted from neighboring peoples came to be incorporated in various ways into the Greek repertoire. As a result, the Greeks identified many types of song, such as serious but energetic paeans to express hopes, victory, or gratitude to the gods, more frenzied dithyrambs to celebrate the adventures of the god Dionysus, somber thre¯noi lamenting the passing of loved ones at funerals, jaunting parthenia to accompany the festive dancing of young maidens at a wedding, and so on. When we recall that music in its different forms accompanied just about every activity of significance in the world of the ancient Greeks, it should not surprise us that some of the earliest images in Greek art depict musicians. Yet it might surprise modern people just how individual-focused the playing of music remained across Greek history. Greek audiences did not expect massive orchestration; sometimes they listened to small groups of musicians, but typically they enjoyed nothing better than the skillful musings of soloists, like the individual gods who had traditionally invented the first music.

Arts: Painting, Pottery

See also: Arts: Dance; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Politics and Warfare: Phalanx; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Education; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Anderson, W. D. 1994. Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hagel, S. 2009. Ancient Greek Music: A New Technical History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mass, M., and J. M. Snyder. 1989. Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mathiesen, T. J. 1999. Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Murray, P., and P. Wilson, eds. 2004. Music and the Muses: The Culture of “Mousike” in the Classical Athenian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. West, M. L. 1992. Ancient Greek Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PAINTING, POTTERY In the world of the ancient Greeks, painting (graphe¯) and pottery (kerameia) typically went hand in hand. Even before there were Greeks in the Aegean area, the Minoan civilization excelled in the production of painted ceramics. Once the Greeks arrived, and for the rest of their history, marvelous examples of their own work in this medium abounded, developing in distinct stages of innovation, quality, and style over the generations and serving to enrich the households and the lives of a wider and wider segment of the Greek populations. Artists of the Minoan civilization that preceded the Greeks of the Mycenaean Era (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) clearly enjoyed the decoration of their pottery with all sorts of figural designs taken from the experiences of daily life. The so-called Octopus flask from Palaikastro, for instance, dated to the fifteenth century BCE, depicts in terrific detail the bountiful marine life in the Aegean basin, just as the Harvesters’ vase from Hagia Triada (sixteenth century BCE) provides a snapshot of farm workers returning successfully from the fields. Together, these two examples highlight the importance of agriculture and fishing to the Minoans, something that their Greek successors could also appreciate. Mycenaean Greek painters learned much from the Minoans in terms of technique and indeed picked up on many of the same timeless themes as those in Minoan painted pottery, but they also added

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a new motif, critical to their culture, warfare (as in the thirteenth-century Warrior vase). The collapse of Mycenaean civilization in the twelfth century BCE did not end the production of painted pottery, but standards of quality became less reliably high and geometric designs displaced figural ones on the painted surfaces. Out of this tradition emerged what scholars call the Protogeometric phase (around 1000 BCE), when Greek painters focused on the qualities of order and proportion in their designs; they added small details to the pots, with an infinite variety of geometric patterns. Athens took the lead in production of Protogeometric wares as it did also in the next, so-called Geometric phase (roughly 900–750 BCE) of painted pottery; this saw artists expand their work to cover entire pieces of pottery with either horizontal or vertical bands filled to the brim with complex geometrical imagery. In addition, they began to experiment with human scenes again, now in black silhouettes, depicting funerals, battles, and chariots. Such painted pieces could stand quite tall, and unlike the almost exclusive uses as tableware and luxury storage in previous eras, now they often served as grave markers for the revered dead (as later styles would continue to do). The technique of one Athenian painter in the Geometric style, the so-called Dipylon Master (named for the double gate at the Kerameikos, or Potter’s Quarter, outside central Athens), seems to have garnered special patronage in this regard. In the late eighth century BCE, as a result of bustling trade connections, Greek painters began to adopt many motifs from Egyptian and Near Eastern artworks, such as griffins, sphinxes, and other mythical beasts and plant life; they also included representations found in their own natural environment, such as trees, flowers, goats, dogs, lions, and so on. This “Orientalizing style,” so named by art historians because of the motifs borrowed from the east (oriens, to use the Latin term), caught on especially in the bustling port city of Corinth, which dominated the sea-lanes of the Greek world in that time period, as well as on a number of the Greek islands, each of which developed distinctive twists on the overall Orientalizing style. Also from Corinth came the original Black Figure pottery, a style whose popularity lasted from the late eighth century all the way through the second century BCE. By the middle of the sixth century, however, Athenian painters and potters had already surpassed Corinth in the production of Black Figure, and Athens would continue to dominate the market in painted pottery from then on. Artists made Black Figure by incising red and white lines into large-scale silhouettes, painted in black; this technique allowed them to create images with greater realism, even though the subject matter continued to be mythical figures and stories out of Greek lore.

Arts: Painting, Pottery

Terracotta box, or pyxis, painted with images of sphinxes, panthers, and flower designs, c. 590–570 BCE. Corinthian artists, like the Canessa Painter to whom scholars attribute this piece of pottery, excelled in the creation of scenes drawing upon motifs adopted from ancient Near Eastern mythology. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1906)

Even while the Black Figure style remained in vogue, Athenian artists developed another to compete with it, what we call Red Figure; its production flourished roughly 530–320 BCE. In this style, the painter left his figures in the original color of the fired pottery clay of Attica and applied paint within and around the figures, experimenting with a larger variety of colors. Red Figure pots display much more artistic detail as a result, as well as much greater interest in depicting daily life in addition to the great myths. Over time, Red Figure artists added to the uniqueness of their products by glazing to enhance and better preserve colors, gilding to brighten their presentations, and even molding reliefs in the clay to produce various three-dimensional effects. So, surviving examples of the Black and Red Figure styles demonstrate rapidly changing artistic trends, and artists rapidly adapting to them; the numbers and widespread distribution of these wares indicate that Greek and foreign consumers were eager for the newest thing in painted pottery. Within the overall parameters of Black and Red Figure painting, then, individual artists delivered their own stylistic

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interpretations, much craved by such buyers. Some of these artists took such pride in their achievement that they identified themselves on their pieces. The first Greek painter to do so, Sophilus, comes from the Black Figure tradition, c. 570 BCE; he signed himself as both artist and potter, though scholars believe that most painters moved around, teaming up with different potters on projects rather than working as potters themselves. Some artists accompanied their signatures with comments on the work of their rivals, revealing to us the heated competitions in the ancient Greek painted pottery market. Many of these artists still remain for us, though, only anonymous figures; who they were and where they came from (as in the cases of the sixth-century artists Amasis and Skythes, for instance) remain mysteries. Yet scientific analysis of the techniques employed can identify the “hands,” as scholars would say, of the painters, telling us that a number of pieces were decorated by the same individual who employed his own style. The so-called Berlin Painter (c. 490 BCE), for example, created almost robotic figures, while the Pan Painter’s (c. 470 BCE) were more exaggerated in their poses; the Penthesilea Painter (c. 460 BCE) and the Kleophon Painter (c. 430 BCE) crowded their “canvases,” the former with emotionally conflicted figures, the latter with stately imagery and scenery. In some cases, pottery painters evidently adopted techniques from famous mural artists, as the Niobid Painter (c. 470 BCE) did in emphasizing facial expressions, three-quarter poses, and gestures reminiscent of the work of Polygnotus, or as the Achilles Painter (c. 440 BCE) did in duplicating the aloofness seen in the works of Phidias. By the late fifth century, artists in certain Greek colonies, like those in southern Italy, were turning out even more elaborately painted products, illustrating greater incorporation of methods from theatrical mural painting, such as set design (ske¯nographia) and shading (skiagraphia) to create a sense of three-dimensional mass. A hundred years later, even the homeland producers, like the Marsyas Painter (c. 340 BCE) at Athens, excelled in similar techniques of color and design (known as the Kerch style). In the generations afterward, what painted pottery continued to be produced came to be dominated by the artists outside Greece proper. Despite the fact that pottery in their world had a fairly straightforward function, Greeks (like their Minoan predecessors) always exhibited a desire to turn such practical objects into works of beauty; they clearly appreciated the skill and the storytelling of their ceramic painters. Thanks to the abundant archaeological evidence of Minoan and Mycenaean wall paintings, we have the luxury of comparing these examples with the painted pottery pieces of those civilizations to understand broader trends in the art of painting, something not so easily done in the great absence of wall painting from later Greek eras. Yet it seems clear that painting

Arts: Painting, Pottery

on pottery provided much greater freedom to Greek artists than painting murals would have; since so much of their work was intended for private use, especially tied to the commemoration of family, friendship, military and athletic accomplishments, and so on, idiosyncratic artists could impress the feelings and vanity of private patrons. Their masterpieces nonetheless captured the interests and the values shared within ancient Greek society (like their almost spiritual obsession with patterns, order, and motion, for instance), providing us with invaluable evidence for understanding the Greek mindset. See also: Arts: Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: ­Pottery-Making; Family and Gender: Burial; Weddings; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Furniture and Furnishings; Recreation and Social Customs: Panathenaia; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Amyx, D. A. 1988. Corinthian Vase Painting. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Beazley, J. D., and B. Ashmole. 1966. Greek Sculpture and Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boardman, J. 1998. Early Greek Vase Painting. London: Thames & Hudson. Boardman, J. 2001. The History of Greek Vases: Potters, Painters and Pictures. London: Thames & Hudson. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Carpenter, T. H., K. M. Lynch, and E. G. D. Robinson. 2014. The Italic People of Ancient Apulia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coldstream, J. N. 2003. Geometric Greece. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Cook, R. M. 1960. Greek Painted Pottery. London: Methuen. Griffiths Pedley, J. 2007. Greek Art and Archaeology. Upper Saddle, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Morris, S. 1992. Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Osborne, R. 1998. Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pollitt, J. J. 1986. Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pollitt, J. J., ed. 2015. The Cambridge History of Painting in the Classical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robertson, M. 1959. Greek Painting. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing. Snodgrass, A. M. 1980. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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PAINTING, WALLS/PANELS More literary references to wall painting (graphe¯, toichographia, anazoˉgraphe¯sis) survive from the world of the ancient Greeks than actual paintings themselves; the perishable materials out of which they were made, as well as the ravages of human history, have seen to that. Yet we cannot dismiss this artistic genre because of the sad state of our evidence, since it was such a major aspect of Greek culture and society. Across the centuries, Greek painters experimented with pigments, shading, and perspective to create the most realistic images and the most dazzling impression on the eye; their masterpieces enriched and expanded the experience of public and private architecture. Most Greek painters worked in fresco, that is, by covering the surface sections of a wall with layers of wet plaster and then applying their pigments to that plaster; as the plaster dried, a chemical reaction between it and the pigments caused the colors to become more vibrant and also sealed them in, helping the painting to last longer. This technique was not, however, a Greek invention; it went back to the ancient Egyptians and probably first came into Greece by way of the Minoan civilization, which had brisk trade and cultural contacts with Egypt. The Minoans produced the earliest known examples of wall painting in the Aegean basin; they depicted a wide range of subjects. Excavations on Crete and especially on the island of Santorini (ancient Thera) provide examples (dated c. 1600–1500 BCE), including frescoes of dolphins, monkeys, birds, real and exotic landscapes, and, of course, people, such as boys boxing, fishermen, processions and rituals, elegant ladies and confident men. The various disasters that brought the Minoan civilization to its end also buried its wall paintings, but the first Greek civilization, the so-called Mycenaean, had already adopted the styles, techniques, and themes of Minoan art. The Mycenaean palace at Tiryns, for example, sports frescoes of charioteers and hunting scenes (dated c. 1300–1200 BCE) that owe their existence directly to the artistic continuity established with previous generations. When the Mycenaean civilization met its own demise (c. 1100 BCE), wall painting apparently disappeared from the Greek world, an unaffordable luxury in the hard times of the Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE), though painting on a small scale persisted on the surfaces of pottery; neither have wall paintings survived from the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), though painters clearly worked on large-scale, as well as small-scale, projects, since they painted statuary and sculptural elements on buildings such as temples (and there exist literary mentions of large paintings as well). The Greeks in the Classical Age (c. 490–323 BCE) likely retained many of the skills passed down from the Bronze Age. Even for Classical times, we must rely almost completely on written descriptions of now-lost artworks. Still, we can develop an appreciation of what wall

Arts: Painting, Walls/Panels

So-called “Ladies in Blue” fresco from the palace complex of Knossos, sixteenth century BCE. Minoan culture evidently appreciated the decoration of interior walls with all sorts of fresco paintings, their themes typically drawn from everyday life, like this image of elegantly dressed ladies perhaps performing a dance or lined up in procession. (Vicspacewalker/ Dreamstime.com)

paintings meant for the Greeks of that period. Some of the best could be found at Athens, a city-state already renowned for its exquisite painted pottery. Here, the community erected public buildings, like the Stoa Poikile (c. 475–450 BCE), an open-air colonnade, filled with artworks; its very name, the “Painted Portico,” comes from that fact. The structure faced the northeastern corner of the agora, the main square of the city and was intended for use on ceremonial occasions and as a social gathering-place. Along the over one-hundred-foot-long inner wall of the colonnade, facing out to the agora in full public view, were frescoes. So, the Stoa Poikile functioned like a modern public museum, in which the artworks theoretically “belong” to the citizenry; unlike a modern museum, though, Greek viewers did not have to pay to look at “their” paintings, and the pieces existed within public space, not tucked away inside a building, and thus played a role in the activities, both solemn and mundane, of the public square. The Athenians commissioned such artworks from the very best painters of the day. The fifth-century BCE master Polygnotus of Thasos, for example, known also for his works at the sanctuary of Athena in the small town of Plataea and at the major shrine of Apollo at Delphi (where his most famous productions, the

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Sack of Troy and the Odysseus in the Underworld, were on display), contributed another Sack of Troy to the Stoa Poikile. He developed a reputation for capturing key moments of decision, a popular theme in all the art of the time period. Similarly current was his intention to draw out the ethos or essential character of the individuals in his paintings, giving their faces real expressiveness (especially their mouths and teeth, apparently); we see this echoed in contemporaneous sculpture and painted pottery (like the Delphic charioteer or the Heracles vase of the Niobid Painter). Polygnotus also utilized spatial details, like three-quarter views and figures on multiple planes, to experiment with perspective, what Greeks called ske¯nographia, because artists developed it primarily in the painted backdrops, or ske¯nai, made for theatrical productions. Also on permanent display at the Stoa Poikile was the fresco of the Amazonomachy (battle against Amazons) by Athens’ own Micon, a sculptor who also painted; it commemorates a mythical conflict in which Athens’ legendary hero, Theseus, participated. Like Polygnotus, Micon also worked at other important Athenian sites, such as the Temple of Hephaestus, located on a hill overlooking the western agora. This structure had many sculptural decorations celebrating the achievements of Theseus and Heracles, as well as fresco paintings on the walls, like Micon’s Centauromachy (battle against centaurs, another theme involving Theseus). It reminds us that the Greeks treated their temples, too, as art galleries, filled with works honoring their gods and heroes. Communities honored themselves as well with significant pieces of art. Panainos of Athens painted the Battle of Marathon for the Stoa Poikile, while an unknown artist contributed the Battle of Oinoe. Both paintings commemorate the city’s real-life military achievements, singling out key personages by incorporating detailed portraits; Panainos’ work also brought in divine and legendary figures to create the image of a more cosmic conflict. The very placement of such scenes from history alongside other artists’ scenes from myth would have elevated reallife events to the level of epic grandeur by blurring the line between legend and reality, not all that surprising for people who did not make the sharp distinction between myth and history that modern people do. Together, the artworks of the Stoa Poikile speak to the motif in Classical art of civilization always winning against barbarism. When the “barbaric” Amazons invaded Athenian territory to punish Theseus for assisting Heracles against their queen, the Amazons met defeat; when the “barbarian” Persians dared to invade Attica in 490 BCE, even the spirits of the land rose up to support the people in driving the invaders out. No frescoes from the Stoa Poikile survive, nor indeed any from the great masters of the fifth century. From the following century, extant examples of fresco come from tombs beautifully decorated in honor of loved ones. For instance, near

Arts: Painting, Walls/Panels

the Greek colony of Paestum in southern Italy, a wall painting from the so-called Tomb of the Warrior depicts a sort of heroic procession of the dead, soldiers and their horses marching with all their regalia. In the southern Italian town of Ruvo, another ancient warrior tomb contains frescoes illustrating what appears to be a funeral dance performed by a group of veiled women, their arms interlocked as in the round dances of many Mediterranean cultures today. Although each of these tombs was apparently for a warrior from the non-Greek populations in southern Italy, the technical features of their paintings are clearly and primarily Greek, and they reveal the bold and vibrant color palette popular in the ancient Greek world: black, white, reds, yellows, blues, greens, and browns. A different sort of image comes from roughly the same era in the so-called Tomb of Persephone at Vergina, the ancient capital of Alexander the Great’s kingdom of Macedon. In the very delicate, almost impressionistic fresco for which the tomb is named, bushy-haired, bushy-faced Hades races off in his horse-drawn chariot clutching Persephone with one arm. She appears to be nude (resembling sculpted images of the goddess Aphrodite in that time period), except for the folds from Hades’ own clothing that seem to wrap around her waist; Persephone desperately tries to escape from her new “husband,” thrusting her upper body and arms in the opposite direction of the chariot’s movement, but to no avail. The painting serves as metaphor for the inescapability of death, quite appropriate in a tomb; no amount of struggle or resistance can stop Hades from getting someone if he wishes. A number of frescoes in the Vergina tombs, including the Hades and Persephone, suggest the continuing influence of renowned painters from the second half of the fifth century BCE, like Apollodorus of Athens, Zeuxis of Heraclea, and Parrhasios of Ephesus (known now only from literary references); these men introduced painting on wooden panels of varying sizes into the repertoire of Greek artists. When selecting their subjects from the rich storehouse of Greek myths, they often chose dramatically frightening moments (like Apollodorus’ Ajax Struck by Lightning) and they excelled at conveying heightened emotions in the faces of their figures (like Zeuxis’ tear-soaked Menelaus mourning his brother’s death or Parrhasios’ tortured Prometheus). Building upon the perspectival advances in ske¯nographia (such as foreshortening) made by Agatharchos of Samos, they each played with particular techniques (Apollodorus and Zeuxis with shading and color, Parrhasios with outlines) to suggest greater depth and truly convince the viewer that he or she was seeing real people or things rather than two-dimensional illusions. At the time of the Vergina frescoes, the greatest Greek artists were Apelles of Cos and Pausias of Sicyon, and they continued in the footsteps of their fifthcentury predecessors. Apelles served as official painter for Philip of Macedon and especially for his son Alexander the Great; he could render painted horses so realistically that actual horses were said to have neighed at seeing them. Pausias had

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a similar reputation, especially for his images of young people, the natural world, and what we would call still lives. He also made popular the technique of encaustic painting, wherein pigments were mixed with hot wax and then applied to a surface with a small spatula. The best known examples of this method, from the Fayum basin in Egypt, date to Roman times (mainly first century BCE through second century CE) and preserve the portraits of hundreds of affluent individuals from the mixed Greco-Egyptian population there. Greek wall and panel painting illustrated the exploits of the divine and the human for public and private edification, while also satisfying the hunger of artists for creative outlets and of viewers for amazement. It was thus a synergistic art form. It was also, often, in the blood; Polygnotus, for instance, came from a painting family; his father, brother, and nephew were all renowned artists. Micon trained his daughter Timarete to become a renowned panel painter herself; Pausias taught his son Aristolaos. Panainos was the brother of the famous sculptor Phidias. Such family traditions of artistry seem to have been the norm, and they continued into later times, as did the basic techniques of painting. So well established were these, in fact, that most artists, whether Greeks or non-Greeks, of the Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE) and the time of the Roman Emperors simply continued them with minor modifications. Although we know something about a few of those later artists (like the third-century BCE Nealkes of Sicyon and his daughter Anaxandra or the first-century BCE Timomachus of Byzantium), most are anonymous now. Yet they maintained the painting culture of the Greeks, spreading it across the Roman world (especially into Roman homes, as at Pompeii) and beyond. See also: Arts: Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Family and Gender: Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Public Buildings; Politics and Warfare: Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Beazley, J. D., and B. Ashmole. 1966. Greek Sculpture and Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boardman, J., ed. 1993. The Oxford History of Classical Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bruno, V. 1977. Form and Color in Greek Painting. New York: W. W. Norton. Burn, L. 2004. Hellenistic Art. Los Angeles: Getty Publications. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson.

Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle Kakoulli, I. 2009. Greek Painting Techniques and Materials from the 4th to the 1st Century BC. London: Archetype Publications. Pollitt, J. J. 1986. Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pollitt, J. J., ed. 2015. The Cambridge History of Painting in the Classical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robertson, M. 1959. Greek Painting. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing.

PHILOSOPHY, ARISTOTLE One of the longest-lasting, and one of the most influential, schools of thought in the world of the ancient Greeks was that begun by Aristotle of Stagira (384– 322 BCE). Known in classical times as the Peripatetic school (named for Aristotle’s habit of walking around in the covered colonnades of Athens while teaching his students) and in modern times as Aristotelianism, this philosophy attempted to ground recommendations for human life and society upon observable data interpreted through rigorous logical processes. Since we know so little about his life before the age of seventeen, the earliest influences on Aristotle’s philosophical perspective cannot be identified. Even his two decades as a student at Plato’s Academy in Athens are not well enough documented to discover what his interests or inclinations were in those days. After his departure from the Academy, however, his strong preoccupation with science emerges clearly. Among friends who lived along the western coast of Turkey and on the nearby Greek islands, Aristotle began conducting extensive observations and detailed analysis of plant and animal life in the region; his researches over the course of four or five years helped establish botany and animal biology, as the Greeks understood those fields. We see Aristotle, then, as an empiricist; he gained knowledge and understanding from observable experience. But he was also one of Plato’s star pupils, and he gained from his teacher the driving need to search that experience for its deepest meanings. This meant that Aristotle was not satisfied with merely cataloguing scientific information (how animals live, move, thrive, for example), but sought to explain the causes behind the data, to achieve knowledge of the purposes for the realities of living nature. The search for causes characterized Aristotle’s investigations into a myriad of fields and all of his teachings as he established his own school of philosophy, the Lyceum in Athens (335 BCE). No wonder he set his students to conducting “research projects” on many diverse subjects; they would collect as much data as possible and then work together with the Master (as Aristotle would come to be called in the Middle Ages) to discover the reasons behind the data. The outcome

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was an impressive output of writings that would inform the investigations of many future generations in classical times and beyond. (Not that Aristotle ever intended this, since his own works and those of his students were composed for use by those at the Lyceum itself and only opened to wider circulation thanks to the Roman forces that raided Athens in the early first century BCE.) Many of the works by Aristotle himself reveal his rethinking of the teachings of Plato, to provide a new philosophy of life for his fellow Greeks. Aristotle’s scientific research had drawn him to the conclusion that every species of living thing, including human beings, follows a pattern of development toward a particular end result (telos), which Aristotle characterized as the maximum flourishing (eudaimonia, loosely translated by some as “happiness”) of that life form. None of this is metaphysical or supernatural in origin; one’s telos is something intimately bound up within one’s physical body. Every living thing exists to flourish, then, and all life forms adapt to promote maximum flourishing. They are not perfect from the start; indeed, they all “learn” from mistakes and the knowledge gained from such learning frequently promotes either the eudaimonia of the particular entity or of that entity’s species. The same holds true for humans, who are always looking to improve their lives and to be happier, not just in a strictly biological sense, but in all ways. Human beings, because of their intellectual capacities, have more control over achieving flourishing than any other creature. What they need to reach that goal, argued Aristotle, is to “hit the mark” more often than not, in fact, to reach a point where they “hit the mark” every time. He characterized this as doing the right thing in the right way, toward the right person(s), at the right time, for the right reasons. Practice and the wisdom gained from experience, as well as constant reflection on one’s motives and actions, would bring one to live by this Golden Mean (the catchphrase by which many have known Aristotle’s basic teaching); it was not an entirely new notion among the Greeks, since many of their oldest proverbs, as well as the teachings of their physicians and dieticians, already encouraged living in the midst, literally, of rival errors that had to be equally avoided. Aristotle attempted to provide a formula for excellent behavior (arete¯), neither deficient nor excessive, behavior that would make one the best version of oneself. Contrasting starkly with the traditional Greek sentiment of harming one’s enemies and helping one’s friends, Aristotle’s definition of living well promoted relationships with all other people along the lines of selflessness; since he regarded everyone as living under the same laws of existence, he considered them all family and friends. One’s efforts should, therefore, seek not only to do right oneself but also to encourage excellence in others.

Arts: Philosophy, Cynics

There were limits to Aristotle’s inclusivity, however. He conceived of the “excellent” person as recognizing and standing firm against all the misfortunes of life; in his view, such striving for eudaimonia required a level of mental strength, maturity, persistence, and determination that could not be found among the capabilities of the young, women, the mentally or physically disabled, or the poor. He even expressed doubts about the ability of foreigners (that is, non-Greeks) to live up to the challenge. Thus, his teachings aimed at Greek men of adequate, or more than adequate, means and education. Despite any deficiencies in or drawbacks from his philosophy, Aristotle introduced a level of research, scholarship, and systematization that had a significant impact on the world of the ancient Greeks from the fourth century BCE onward. His views, and those of the pupils and associates whom he sent out into a wider world, prompted discussion, critique, and reformulation among other authors and teachers across the Greek territories on ethics, physics, psychology, politics, and many other important subjects. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Skeptics; Philosophy, Stoics; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Aristotle, Political Theory of; Plato, Political Theory of; Recreation and Social Customs: Gymnasia/ Palaestrae; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Cosmology; Education; Physics; Zoology FURTHER READING Broadie, S. 1991. Ethics with Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press. Falcon, A. 2005. Aristotle and the Science of Nature: Unity without Uniformity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lynch, J. P. 1972. Aristotle’s School: A Study of a Greek Educational Institution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Robinson D. N. 1989. Aristotle’s Psychology. New York: Columbia University Press. Solmsen, F. 1960. Aristotle’s System of the Physical World: A Comparison with His Predecessors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

PHILOSOPHY, CYNICS In the fourth century BCE, new types of philosophical thought began to develop among the Greeks in response to the teachings and execution of Socrates of Athens (469–399 BCE). The most prominent came from Socrates’ pupil, Plato of Athens (429–347 BCE), but not everyone shared his approach, especially his establishment

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of a formal philosophical school and his goal of founding an ideal society. Others instead followed in the footsteps of another of Socrates’ associates, Antisthenes of Athens (d. 365 BCE), who looked to abandon human society as much as possible. These were the Cynics. For Antisthenes, all of Socrates’ relentless questioning of so-called experts, authority figures, and conventional wisdom, as well as the travesty of his execution by the Athenian court system, led to the conclusion that any and every human society is fundamentally flawed and that following the customs and expectations of human society will not lead one to happiness but to annihilation of the self. Antisthenes probably found it easier to adopt this point of view than Plato could have because, unlike the latter philosopher, he was only half Athenian; Antisthenes’ mother came from Thrace (mod. Bulgaria), which most Greeks of his time would have regarded as a barbarous land. In other words, Antisthenes already found himself an outsider in an Athens where people prided themselves on being true citizens only if born of two Athenian parents; social custom already excluded him in significant ways. Besides, being a full citizen did nothing to save Socrates from unjust elimination at the hands of his fellow Athenians. Antisthenes’s fellow student Plato’s conception of an ideal society would not have ended the tyranny of such customs; it would have simply substituted new ones with even greater powers of control behind them. Antisthenes took from his time with Socrates a life lesson that Plato apparently missed: the sanctity, we might call it, of the independent individual. He sought independence of character as the goal of life, a life of courage and action according to one’s own convictions, unhampered by social restrictions, corrupting pleasures, bodily desires, and uncontrollable passions; to Antisthenes, such things made one ill, even mad, in the mind and especially in the spirit. In their place, he recommended the life of a wanderer, with no home to defend, satisfied with the simplest food and clothes. His hero and model was the legendary Heracles, the ultimate wanderer, who toiled without complaint and eventually attained the status of a god. Antisthenes insisted on an attitude of indifference toward human society, so as not to get caught up in its needs and requirements and false values of what is good, and he criticized the foolish ways of most people, but he nonetheless possessed sympathy for others, and so also saw himself as a sort of physician to the spiritually ill and the morally lost. Inspired by Antisthenes, the exiled son of a banker from Sinope, Diogenes (d. c. 325 BCE) built upon such ideas to become the acknowledged founder of Cynicism. He determined to live the simplest and least sociable way that he could. Abandoning any “enslavement” to possessions and property, he lived wherever he could find shelter (frequently, the story goes, sleeping in a tub or extra-large clay barrel) and performed his bodily functions wherever necessary, even in public,

Arts: Philosophy, Cynics

without any sense of shame. In his view, human beings were animals, part of the natural world; he even referred to himself as a “savage dog.” Since Diogenes and his early followers seemed to live like dogs on the street, all this contributed to his “movement” gaining its name, Cynics, from the Greek word for dogs (kynes, sing. kyoˉn). Diogenes had disconnected himself from family, religion, and politics, from propriety, marriage, and duty, anything that might tie him to “civilization”; he “recoined current values” to establish his own set of norms. To spread his message to others, he would stand on street corners or in the marketplace and preach to them, delivering heckling, satirical popular sermons (what were referred to as diatribes by the early third century BCE). He urged people to divest themselves, as he had, from all the artificial trappings of society, to hold a “normal lifestyle” in low esteem, and instead to live according to nature and free themselves from the bonds of custom. A famous Cynic, Crates of Thebes (d. c. 285 BCE), apparently gave up his entire family fortune to the people of his community in order to follow in the footsteps of Diogenes. Cynics after Antisthenes and Diogenes continued to believe in the basic goodness of all human beings, regardless of status, gender, or race; in their view, social conventions, not human nature, brought discord and conflict. Rather than citizens of any particular city-state, with its destructive group thinking and blind patriotism, they considered themselves “cosmopolitan,” that is, citizens of the world (a notion which Diogenes introduced). They reached out to all people, especially to the common man and woman, offering them a way of life that anyone could follow; anyone could muster the willpower and flexibility required, without education, wealth, or status. Indeed, they considered every human being to be playing a part on the “stage of life”; the key to happiness was to play one’s part—any part—well. No wonder they developed forms of expression, like diatribe and satire, that everyday people could so easily understand and mimic. In a sense, the “back-to-nature” philosophy of the Cynics encouraged people in the world of the ancient Greeks to try to live as rugged individuals, truly liberated from society. Ancient Cynicism was the ultimate statement of faith in the liberty of each human person. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Skeptics; Philosophy, Stoics; Family and Gender: Men; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Science and Technology: Cosmology; Education; Primary Documents: Diogenes Laertius on the Philosopher Hipparchia (Third Century CE)

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The World of Ancient Greece FURTHER READING Branham, R. B., and M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, eds. 1996. The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Desmond, W. D. 2006. The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Dudley, D. R. 1937. A History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the Sixth Century AD. London: Methuen. Navia, L. E. 1996. Classical Cynicism: A Critical Study. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Rankin, H. D. 1983. Sophists, Socrates, and Cynics. London: Croom Helm. Zanker, P. 1995. The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity. Translated by A. Shapiro. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

PHILOSOPHY, EPICUREANS The Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE) witnessed the creation and spread of new philosophies of thought that, in general, focused on the attainment of individual happiness and fulfillment; some stressed the importance of self-sufficiency in the insecurity of the times, providing guidance for how to deal with the capricious changes of fortune. Among these new schools of philosophy was that introduced by Epicurus of Athens (341–270 BCE), known to modern students as Epicureanism. Actively teaching his ideas at first in Asia Minor, around the year 306 BCE, Epicurus purchased a house with a nice garden in Athens. There he secluded himself from the affairs of the city and maintained an austere standard of living together with a small number of men and women, free and slave, who had joined him in creating an experimental commune. Their determination to maintain their privacy earned them resentment from those who regarded the Epicureans as antisocial, while others became fascinated by what they learned about “the garden” and sought to implement for themselves the teachings of Epicurus. The ideas of many Greek thinkers had a profound influence on Epicurus’ perspective, but none perhaps more than the theories about the cosmos espoused by Greek cosmologists, especially “atomists” like Democritus of Abdera. If the entire universe, as the atomists argued, consisted of an infinite number of infinitesimally small and indivisible bits of matter, then all life, even human life, was wholly material in nature; motion, growth, maturity, love, warfare, and so on, were all explainable as physical or biological manifestations of this materialism. Human beings, then, could have no eternity as spiritual entities (even in the limited sense of the psyche¯ in which most Greeks believed); only the atoms that composed them were eternal, and these would and must return into the cosmic structure at the point of one’s death. Furthermore, even the combinations of atoms that made a particular person were nothing more than a random assortment, just one in an infinite number

Arts: Philosophy, Epicureans

of possible persons (or for that matter, animals, objects, etc.) that might have come into existence. Epicureans held that there is no purpose or guiding force behind anything in such a random cosmos; the gods of Greek tradition, if they existed at all, were, like humans, simply atomic compounds, perhaps living on another dimensional plane. Epicurus in fact postulated that the realm of the gods lay separate from the human world and therefore the gods must be indifferent to human affairs. As a consequence, there was no reason to fear them or even to worship them as humans are prone to do; the gods could not reward you nor would they punish you. In addition, since there was no afterlife for humans, as indicated by the scientific fact that we all entirely decompose into our constituent atoms upon death, there could be no possibility that the “gods of the underworld” might torment you at some future time, nor, of course, that they might bless you in the Elysian Fields. The school of Epicurus was thus teaching ancient Greeks neither to fear death as a precursor to worse things to come nor to anticipate death as the beginning of their just rewards. Epicureans regarded death as a release from this harried world, not to be sought but to be accepted with calm indifference. Indeed, one must embrace life, the one and only lifetime that anyone would ever experience as a particular combination of atoms. Epicurus drew from experience and observation the obvious conclusion that pleasure in this entirely physical world was a coveted goal of all human beings as “happiness”; he equated embracing life with leading a pleasurable life. As he himself was quoted to have said, the necessary things of life (by which he meant the simple pleasures) are easy to come by. But it was also observable that some pleasures are frivolous, partial, or temporary at best, and some even hurtful and destructive at worst. A person must therefore seek only those pleasures that are not outweighed by the pains involved with them. Always to seek more pleasure, for instance, would simply spoil one’s present pleasure with the pain of unsatisfied future desire. The best of all pleasures must be a sense of full satisfaction such that no anxiety over more or less remains; one has then achieved ataraxia (peace of mind). This requires what many have labeled the “hedonistic calculus,” the mental ability and practice of choosing one’s pleasures prudently, of always scanning those pleasures for their potential pitfalls. Epicurus believed that experience will confirm or deny the perceptions drawn from our senses and thus minimize our faulty judgments. This meant that living wisely, honestly (with oneself and others), and justly was critical. More than any other advice, Epicureans encouraged withdrawing from the hassles of society, avoiding the headaches of politics, removing oneself from emotional entanglements that brought stress, jealousy, or negativity. They advocated a life “hidden” in quiet contemplation, reflection, and simplicity, even austerity, with few needs and little dependence on others.

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Yet Epicurus did not condone complete isolation of the individual. Although he had little confidence in the laws of society, unless they secured justice for all (which they rarely did), he insisted that laws were still necessary for those who had not attained wisdom; the wise, he insisted, do kindnesses for others and abstain from all harm-doing without such societal injunction. Although he condemned marriage, he strongly advocated surrounding oneself with those persons who brought out the most pleasant feelings in one’s life. Indeed, Epicurus referred to such persons as true friends and heralded such friendship as the greatest of pleasures. Perhaps few Greeks could afford the luxury of living as privately as Epicurus did; nonetheless, his philosophy advocating the absence of cares had a widespread impact in a world of many cares. This is indicated, if by nothing else, by the many quotations of Epicurus and the many references to his school of thought in the works of playwrights, scholars, philosophers, and statesmen over generations of time. Even when they criticized Epicureanism, as many did, they seemed equally fascinated by it. Perhaps Epicurus had set up an ideal for living that many wished they could achieve, but felt unable to do so. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Skeptics; Philosophy, Stoics; Family and Gender: Death and Dying; Friendship and Love; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Science and Technology: Cosmology FURTHER READING Algra, K., et al. 1999. The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Annas, J. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fish, J., and K. Sanders, eds. 2011. Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Long, A. A. 1986. Hellenistic Philosophy. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warren, J. 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PHILOSOPHY, PLATONIC Having traveled around the eastern and central Mediterranean for nearly a decade in the wake of his teacher Socrates’ execution, Plato (427–347 BCE) returned home to Athens in the year 387 BCE, where he founded an association for philosophical

Arts: Philosophy, Platonic

study known to later generations as the Academy. His pupils were male and female; they, and Plato’s fellow “instructors,” came from across the Greek world, most of them from affluent backgrounds. It seems to have been Plato’s intention to train the next generation of influential Greeks especially in the critical-thinking methods of his mentor as well as in the conclusions that Plato himself had been searching for during his travels. Despite the general impression students and others might have today about the Academy from reading Plato’s dialogues and the letters attributed to him, it was a place where a wide range of subjects were studied, including mathematics and geometry, which Plato knew would be of use for his leader pupils in their economic policies, military planning, and so on. Of course, his first objective was for them to understand human nature in order to form a more perfect society, an ideal state. In Plato’s view, human beings are, by nature, locked in a struggle within themselves, the struggle between their bodies and their souls, between their desires or passions and their intellect; only when these internal forces operate harmoniously together will a man or woman achieve the best ends. When the intellect possessed by each human being, in alliance with our willpower, directs the desires or passions, when by means of that logical reasoning faculty men and women seek the eternal truths that lie behind all things experienced in this transitory world, then they are able to live by certain cardinal virtues: sophia (wisdom), andreia (courage), soˉphrosyne¯ (restraint), and dikaiosyne¯ (sound judgment), which together will lead them to do the best thing, the right thing, in their private and public lives. Despite the high idealism and seemingly esoteric nature of his many discourses on knowledge and reason, Plato never had any intention of creating head-in-theclouds philosophers, but rather role models and, again, leaders for the communities of the Greek world. Indeed, he came to believe that such virtuous individuals required formation within a virtuous community environment; they could not be created in some sort of intellectualizing vacuum cut off from society. So, society had to be reformed in order to guarantee (if possible) the formation of such virtuous men and women. In his opinion, this could not be done in the Athens of his own time, or even as it had existed before the Peloponnesian War; democratic Athens promoted amateurs and demagogues to power because it relied on uneducated common citizens to make critical choices, which typically degenerated into popularity contests and fickle, emotional decision-making. Instead, Plato urged the cultivation of the wisest children, both girls and boys, in the use of their reason for the common good of their fellow citizens; such children, educated and trained in all the necessities of statecraft, would grow up to be the “guardians” of their communities, the “­philosopher-rulers,” as most people today would call them. Wealth, looks, family

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and personal connections would have to be scrapped as the criteria for political leadership, replaced with the above-mentioned higher standards. Of course, Plato’s perspective on these matters appears, and has long appeared, idealistic, but it has also been the ultimate basis of many reforms of government and society in the modern era; indeed, it has probably affected more thousands of everyday lives in modern times than it did in ancient times. In the world of the ancient Greeks, the philosophy of Plato became certainly one of the most important elements of high culture, the basis of much discussion among a series of elite intellectuals for generations; most Greeks acquainted with Platonism simply studied and discussed the philosopher’s notions as ideals. Many people were exposed to Platonism in the Greek schools; again, this was a fraction of the larger Greek population, that is, it consisted of those few who could afford the time for an education, and often took the form of mental exercises rather than practical applications to life. Plato himself, however, had set a precedent for Greek intellectuals to put their theories into political practice. Even before establishing the Academy, he had traveled to the court of Dionysius I (d. 367 BCE), tyrant (that is, military dictator) of Syracuse, known as “archon of Sicily” for his efforts in defending the eastern (Greek) half of that island from Carthaginian encroachment. Although Plato could not convince Dionysius to adopt the lifestyle and policies he considered ideal for a “philosopher-ruler,” he did win over the latter’s brother-in-law, Dion (d. 354 BCE). Almost two decades later, when Plato returned to Syracuse at Dion’s request, the philosopher became embroiled in disputes and intrigues over power and policymaking surrounding the new tyrant, Dionysius II (d. 343 BCE), Dion’s nephew. Although his efforts at influencing Dionysius II came to naught, Plato’s reputation as a hands-on advocate of political reform spread across the Greek world. Back in Athens, Plato’s pupils and friends did not just debate his ideas in an intellectual fashion; some of them took up the gauntlet of attempting to implement such ideas into the political realm. These included especially the successful and influential Athenian generals Timotheus (d. 355 BCE), Chabrias (d. 356 BCE), and Phocion (d. 318 BCE). Their reputations for independence of character and high moral conduct on behalf of Athens reflected, in part, their devotion to Plato’s ideals; the latter’s teachings certainly had an influence on the Athenians’ nickname for Phocion, “the Good.” Perhaps the most dramatic expression of belief in the teachings of Plato comes from the case of Agis IV, king of Sparta. In the later third century BCE, Agis sought to remake his country partly along the lines of Spartan tradition and partly along the lines of a Platonic utopia; he paid dearly for the attempt. Plato, indeed, had imagined such revolutionary upheaval in an oligarchy, such as the Spartan, in his Republic many decades earlier, predicting accurately what indeed took place.

Arts: Philosophy, Skeptics

In his writings, Plato pursued the same sort of mathematical perfection and even emotional detachment that one sees in the sculptors of his day (even though he himself seemed to have had little respect for artists, who focused, understandably, on the realm of sensory perception that Plato denigrated so much). He believed that rational philosophizing had the medicinal power to “heal” the “disease” of evildoing and mistake-making caused by the all-too-human soul-body conflict. To repress the emotions, to practically worship reason and justice, to seek the sort of perfection in unison with the cosmos that Plato advocated gave those whom he taught and influenced a very grave mission, challenging to achieve in the world of typical ancient Greek values. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Skeptics; Philosophy, Stoics; Second Sophistic Movement; Sophists; Economics and Work: Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Democracies; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Cosmology; Education; Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Dillon, J. 2003. The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347–274 BC). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fuks, A. 1984. Social Conflict in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill. Kraut, R., ed. 1992. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tritle, L. A. 1988. Phocion the Good. London: Croom Helm.

PHILOSOPHY, SKEPTICS In the Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE), new philosophies developed in reaction to the much larger, much more impersonal world of big cities and kingdoms in which many Greeks found themselves living. Alexander the Great had unlocked the floodgates to a heady variety of cultural customs and beliefs that did not provide nearly the sense of security and stability of the old Greek city-states. Coping with the resultant stress and finding a way to establish one’s own sense of selfsufficiency in a large, lonely, and buffeting world were the objectives of the new philosophy called Skepticism. Pyrrhon (d. c. 270 BCE), a relatively poor but respected man from Elis in southwestern Greece, founded the most prominent branch of Skepticism. He had

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firsthand experience of the “new world” after Alexander, having traveled with the latter’s armies as far as India and having studied along the way with magoi (Persian priests) and gymnosophistai (Hindu yogis). His observations of the many peoples of the Middle East and Asia led Pyrrhon to believe that most human beings, regardless of culture, possessed flawed senses and impaired reason; as a result, he did not see how any of them could lay claim, as they often did, to any shred of certainty when it came to human knowledge. They might seem to know things, but they really had no business making assertions to that effect. He also came to realize how often human beings harm one another because of their assertions of knowledge, such as the knowledge of what is “right” and what is “wrong,” and burst into emotional overreactions in consequence. Pyrrhon’s perspective became fundamental to Skepticism: since all that people “know” is what they see or experience with their other senses, and since these are all flawed, they should assert nothing as true or false; they should suspend their judgment, especially making fewer value judgments, rather than declare anything absolutely one way or the other. Unlike the more widely practiced Hellenistic philosophies of Epicureanism and Stoicism, Skepticism remained along the fringes of acceptance in the everwidening world under Greek control. Still, it gained greater currency and influence when the leader of the Platonic Academy in Athens, Arcesilaus of Pitane, introduced ideas from Skepticism into the teachings and interpretations of Platonism; this began in the decade following the death of Pyrrhon. Arcesilaus’ “Academic Skepticism” continued for a long time, becoming more and more doubtful about human knowledge, and came under repeated intellectual assault from other philosophical schools, like the Stoics, who insisted on greater certainty through the powers of human reason. Nearly a century after Arcesilaus, Carneades of Cyrene, as the new lecturerin-chief among the Academic Skeptics, and an incredibly enthusiastic and effective leader of their movement, brought their ideas to Rome, then the capital of a burgeoning, relatively young, empire; as a special ambassador from Athens, Carneades thrilled audiences with his public presentations. Some members of the Roman Senate, however, notably Cato the Censor, strongly objected to Carneades because, as a Skeptic, the latter had offered two equally persuasive lectures, each one giving an opposite view on the existence and character of justice. Essentially, Academic Skepticism seemed to be comfortable defending or rejecting justice, as if there were no absolute standard to which people should adhere, only socially acceptable conventions. What shocked Romans might not have grasped (and it might not have mattered to them even if they had) was that Carneades’ teaching grew not only out of the ideas proposed back in the late fourth century by Pyrrhon but, indeed, out of the tradition of questioning and open-ended discussion practiced so deftly by Socrates

Arts: Philosophy, Skeptics

and his pupil Plato, and, in fact, by the Sophists whom Socrates and Plato denigrated so persistently. Like Carneades, Academic Skeptics right down to the early first century BCE would insist that the burden of proving something to be true or to be known, through posing and answering questions on that subject, could go on endlessly. Humans, therefore, waste their time and energy forming attachments to so-called truths, against which just about any person could continue to adduce contradictions. Like most Hellenistic philosophies, Skepticism in its various forms sought to teach the attainment of apatheia, freedom from the tyranny of emotions, and ataraxia, freedom from worries or stress. Of course, Skeptics made these hard to achieve considering that they denied human knowledge in a world in which, quite obviously, human beings do need to make choices in one direction or another on a daily basis. Pyrrhon realized this and advised that, when one makes such decisions, one should choose from what seems most probably true, most probably right, most probably virtuous, always with the self-awareness that one never really knows whether one’s choice is the truest, most right, or most virtuous one or not. To determine such probabilities in any course of action, one should be continuously searching the options (including such things as laws, traditions, and other precedents), looking at what might or might not be best in any given situation; hence, the very term Skeptic, from the Greek word for looking (skepsis). Skeptics, then, did not deny the new sense of loneliness in Hellenistic times but, in a sense, embraced it, arguing that it had always been there. Skepticism attempted to give its followers the tools necessary to chart their own courses in a world of even more changing uncertainties, where each person had to be able to function as his or her own compass on seas that would always be rough. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Science and Technology: Cosmology FURTHER READING Algra, K., et al. 1999. The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnes, J. 1990. The Toils of Scepticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bevan, E. R. 1959. Stoics and Sceptics. New York: Barnes and Noble. Long, A. A. 1986. Hellenistic Philosophy. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Long, A. A. 2006. From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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PHILOSOPHY, STOICS The Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE) witnessed the creation and spread of new philosophies of thought that, in general, focused on the attainment of individual happiness and fulfillment; some stressed the importance of self-sufficiency in the insecurity of the times, providing guidance for how to deal with the capricious changes of fortune. Among these new schools of philosophy was that offered by Zeno of Citium (d. c. 265 BCE), who moved from his native Cyprus to the city of Athens, passing time with his pupils in the Stoa Poikile or Painted Stoa; hence, the name applied to his group, Stoics. Zeno had come out of the Cynic movement in Greek philosophy, having been instructed in Athens by Crates of Thebes, who had, in turn, been taught by the famous Diogenes of Sinope. Stoicism broke with the typical Cynics, however, coming to be more influenced by the scientific discourse of contemporary and previous generations (such as the Pre-Socratics), as well as by the more idealistic thinking of the Platonic Academy (the philosopher Polemo at the Academy directly influenced Zeno) and by the teleological approach of Aristotle’s Lyceum. Drawing upon various intellectual threads, then, the Stoics arrived at a conception of the universe that was quite mechanistic; nothing in the universe is superfluous to its functioning; everything exists for a purpose, including each human being. Every man and woman has a function, a role to play, in the great machine of the cosmos, which itself is entirely logical and rational. From this evolved the Stoic insistence that the ultimate rationality, a sort of Eternal Mind (Logos or Nous), ran the entire universe; some Stoics regarded this Mind as penetrating every corner of the cosmos just as honey circulates throughout a honeycomb. Even the human mind was conceived as something permeating the entire person, and Stoics equated the human mind with the Universal Mind, as a small spark from the whole that connects each person to the whole. In consequence, reason allows each individual to know the laws of the universe and to follow them knowingly or disregard them knowingly. Building upon such conceptions and their roots in Cynicism, Stoics urged people to seek tranquility, as well as independence of character; in line with the emphatic rationalism that they picked up from Platonic philosophy, they regarded this as possible when human beings live their lives according to reason and logic alone, purging themselves of all passions (which lead people into nothing but trouble); through mental struggle with the irrational forces of our lives, Stoics believed in the attainment of such emotional freedom (apatheia) from worry, fearfulness, bodily desire, and so on. Even when confronted with uncomfortable choices, the Stoics taught, we must bend to reason no matter the emotive countertendencies; this will lead us to

Arts: Philosophy, Stoics

discover our function in the universe, to fulfill that function well, and, therefore, to have a good life. They likened such a rational human to a dog on a leash: each dog (person) possesses the will to follow where its owner (reason, Logos) pulls the leash, and if it does so, its walk is carefree and smooth, leading to the proper destination; if a dog (person) tugs in directions against the leash, there is pain, disappointment, and trouble. Responsibility and higher purpose thus work hand in hand. Stoics therefore encouraged a sense of duty to the universe and a belief in having a destiny within that universe, which would bring confidence and peace of mind to men and women in their daily lives. Further, by asserting that every person, male and female, free and slave, Greek and non-Greek, contained the same sort of universal spark of reason, the Stoics preached the equality of all human beings. Realizing that each person’s lot in life, his or her destiny, differed from every other, Stoics also developed a profound perspective of tolerance and compassion for others; they understood that enslavement, for instance, was not the slave’s fault but rather part of the testing nature of the cosmos, a circumstance in which anyone at all might find himself or herself. One should, consequently, esteem a slave as one does any human being. Yet Stoics asserted that even a slave must live his or her life according to the same high principles as anyone else, that is, self-restraint, self-discipline, acceptance, temperance, and conscientiousness, in order to fulfill his or her part in the grand design of the cosmos. This applied, of course, equally to the most powerful monarchs, whose first duty was not to power or gain, but to doing the work of the cosmos. In other words, Stoics conceived a powerful cosmopolitan (in the original sense of “world community”) definition of human life, in which each individual ideally works for the common good of all, lives not just for himself or herself but for one another, shows mercy to enemies, supporting and forgiving others in their trials and tribulations; they promoted this wider view of humanity’s togetherness over against the prevailing Greek mentality of fierce parochialism and patriotism, city-state against city-state, and of competition for glory, individual against individual. In place of the typical divisiveness, Stoics advocated the justice for all and love for all demanded by the interconnected universe itself, the need not just for moral self-sufficiency among human beings but also for friendship. Stoicism had widespread impact across many fields of endeavor, for instance, in literature and the sciences. Many Greek political leaders (and later Roman ones as well) came under the influence of Stoic ideals and attempted to implement them in some way or another. Perhaps the most famous instance involved the Spartan King Cleomenes III, a pupil of the early Stoic Sphaerus of Borysthenes (d. c. 210 BCE), who served as advisor to the king. In the late third century BCE, Cleomenes likely made some of his radical reforms to the Spartan state and community in an attempt to achieve the sort of social and political perfection professed by Sphaerus

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and other Stoic thinkers. For his efforts, the king later suffered defeat at the hands of foreign enemies and exile. When he fled to Ptolemaic Egypt, however, he again attempted to put some of those Stoic principles into practice, against the will of the reigning monarch, and met his end as a result. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Skeptics; Economics and Work: Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Politics and Warfare: Aristotle, Political Theory of; Plato, Political Theory of; Science and Technology: Cosmology; Education FURTHER READING Bevan, E. R. 1959. Stoics and Sceptics. New York: Barnes and Noble. Erskine, A. 1990. The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action. London: Bristol Classical Press. Irvine, A. 2008. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Long, A. A. 1986. Hellenistic Philosophy. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rist, J. 1969. Stoic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vogt, K. 2008. Law, Reason and the Cosmic City: Political Philosophy in the Early Stoa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PLATO. See PHILOSOPHY, PLATONIC POETRY, EPIC The Greeks certainly excelled at the composition of epic poetry (epopoiia, rhapsoˉidia). The term derives from the Greek word for story and applies particularly to long, complex tales about heroic figures and the gods. Although Greek poets did not invent the epic genre, they certainly contributed much to it, especially a particularly strong humanism, a complexity and depth of character development that made it one of the most beloved forms of entertainment and elucidation in Greek culture from very early in their history right through the absorption of their world by the Roman Empire. Epic poetry existed from at least the third millennium BCE in ancient Sumer (today’s southern Iraq); from there, both the ancient Israelites and Assyrians

Arts: Poetry, Epic

adopted elements of epic poetry for their own cultural products. The Greeks may have learned it by way of the Hurrians and Hittites (both also heirs to Sumerian traditions), many of whose tales of the gods the Greek stories too closely resemble to be coincidental. As in the case of the earlier epic traditions, Greek epic began as oral poetry, sung by professional storytellers the Greeks called rhapsoˉdoi. Generations of these men traveled the countryside of Greece, learning the true stories and the fabled tales of local renown, weaving them together into more and more intricate versions. Obviously, the rhapsodes had remarkable skill at memorization, but, in addition, they developed various techniques to make the task of remembering such long stories easier. Also, they added plenty of their own imagination and style. Apparently, rhapsodes attracted followers who were eager to learn the epics, too. In a sort of master-pupil relationship, older rhapsodes would hand down their particular versions of tales to their protégés, who would then carry on a particular tradition of storytelling. Again, all the noted cultures seem to have shared these basic features in their separate traditions of oral epic. The Greek tradition of rhapsodes probably began during the Mycenaean civilization (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), as a form of entertainment for the Mycenaean warlords, their warriors, and guests at special events, such as great feasts. With the fall of Mycenaean culture in the twelfth century BCE, rhapsodes became some of the most important “historians” of Mycenaean daily life and customs, as they kept traces and sketches of it in bits and pieces in their tales about heroes from the Bronze Age, mixed together with details of the intervening Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE) in which they lived. Modern research has demonstrated the effectiveness of various oral traditions, including the Greek, in preserving very old pieces of information, cultural and historical; the overlay and multiplicity of stories combined over generations to create a Greek epic, however, mask the real events that may have inspired its creation in the first place. By the early Archaic Period (that is, by the eighth century BCE), an identifiable set of rhapsodes began to construct many collections of poems or epic cycles, especially about the fortresses of Thebes and Troy in the Bronze Age. Most of these singers are known today only from fragments or summaries preserved by later authors. One of them, the famous Homer, seems to have been the last in a particular line of rhapsodes. Homer’s epic masterpieces, the Iliad and the Odyssey, present our best evidence for what characterized Greek epic poetry. Both contain similar stock elements, including similes, formulaic epithets, speeches, personality sketches, ring compositions (proceeding through basic material and then reversing course to elaborate upon the themes presented), digressions, and reminiscences or flashbacks. Such features served the singer and his audience by heightening the action,

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gripping the emotions, illuminating the heroism of the characters, or graphically elucidating their failures. They helped the singer maintain the attention of his audience for very long periods of time. Even though we assume that a rhapsode like Homer would have split his great tales up into reasonable sound bites (scholars have estimated that the Iliad, at over 15,000 lines, and the Odyssey, at close to 12,000, would have taken between twenty and thirty hours to perform!), still this meant that he had to hold the attention of his listeners over perhaps days of performance. The techniques of oral tradition made this feasible. By the late Archaic Period (that is, by the sixth century BCE), the works of the most famous rhapsodes, Arctinus of Miletus, Lesches of Mytilene, Eugammon of Cyrene, Stasinus, Agias of Troezen, and, of course, Homer, seem to have appeared in written form, probably transcribed by literate followers of the singers rather than by the singers themselves. Such written versions of the epics preserved them in an exact form, an unchanging version of the stories, which could then be handed down through many generations. Such generations could now study the written words of epic, as the famous Alexandrian scholar Aristarchus certainly did when he edited manuscripts of Homer’s poems in the third century BCE; indeed, Homer’s tales became standard reading material in Greek schools everywhere. Yet they nonetheless still expected someone to recite the stories out loud, which meant that traveling performers of epic, re-tellers of tales, continued to flourish in the communities across the Greek world. Further, the epic cycles, around the same time as their circulation in written form, had become the grist for serious theatrical productions in communities like Athens; Greek audiences could literally see before their eyes the great stories come to life on stage, often in language reminiscent of that utilized by the epic poets themselves. The ancients would have been surprised at our modern interest in the historical accuracy of epic poetry; they did not expect that of such stories. Archaeological investigation has corroborated certain striking details from Homer’s epics (such as the slanted walls of Troy, the intricacies of Mycenaean architecture, the body shields, boar’s tusk helmets, and other weapons of the distant Bronze Age, names and terms common in Mycenaean Greek but not to the later versions of the Greek language, and so on). But epic poetry is poetry, storytelling, after all, not an attempt at a completely accurate historical record. For a Greek epic poet, like Homer, all his skills worked together toward one essential purpose: to understand humanity by means of its greatest representatives, the heroes of old, whether entirely real or partly imaginary. Exploring a terrifying conflict, like the Trojan War, delving into the demons of a warrior, like Achilles, or unravelling the mistakes of one, like Odysseus, and the consequences, gave the poet, and his audience, or, later, readers, the opportunity to recognize certain key

Arts: Poetry, Lyric

traits in themselves and their society, and to assess the nature, causes, and effects of those traits. Epic poetry described unforgettable settings and scenes and conveyed deep emotions, thought processes, and relationships. No wonder it inspired the Greeks so much, and from their time, many other cultures, from the Romans and medieval Europeans right up to the present. See also: Arts: History; Music; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Family and Gender: Friendship and Love; Men; Mourning/ Memorialization; Women; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Phalanx; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Education; Greek Language Groups; Primary Documents: Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE); Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown); Poetry—Greek Poets on Love; Poetry—Greek Poets on War FURTHER READING Carter, J. B., and S. O. Morris, eds. 1995. The Ages of Homer. Austin: University of Texas. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Finley, M. I. 1972. The World of Odysseus. New York: Viking Press. Kirk, G. S. 1965. Homer and the Epic. New York: Cambridge University Press. Latacz, J. 2004. Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lefkowitz, M. R. 1981. The Lives of the Greek Poets. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lucas, D. W. 1959. The Greek Tragic Poets. 2nd ed. London: Cohen and West. Snodgrass, A. M. 1971. The Dark Age of Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Snodgrass, A. M. 1980. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

POETRY, LYRIC In the world of the ancient Greeks, patriotic warfare, symposia, religious festivals, and athletic contests provided occasions for celebration. Among those who commemorated such celebrations were poets who sang their songs to the music of the lyre, the handheld harp (and also to the aulos, a sort of clarinet). These lyric poets, from the seventh century through the fifth century BCE, built upon the tradition of the great epic stories, such as the tales of Homer, to create songs (some as small as single verses) focused on real people of the present time, on heroic homecomings and fallen comrades, victorious athletes and prizes lost, life, death, glory, shame, wealth, poverty, and even political turmoil.

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Lyric poets became stars, their names recognized and their works quoted throughout the Greek world. Some became famous for expressing typical Greek views on warfare and the values of the Greek warrior society. The seventh-­century poet of Sparta, Tyrtaeus, captured the essence of hand-to-hand combat, often graphically: “Fear not the masses of the enemy, nor turn away, but let each man hold his shield steady, face-forward, treating Life as his enemy and the black forces of Death as welcome as the light of the sun. . . . Let each man close with the enemy, wound and seize him, with his long spear or his sword, and placing foot against foot, shield against shield, crest against crest, helmet against helmet, fight his foe chest to chest. . . . Hold, then, young men. . . . For wrong, indeed, is it for your elders to fall in the front-lines and lie ahead of the younger, for a grey-headed and long-bearded soldier to breath his last in the dust, holding his bloody private parts in his hands.” Alcaeus of Mytilene (sixth century BCE), active in civil war and partisan politics, spoke of war’s trophies: “The great house is all agleam with bronze. War has bedecked the whole roof with bright helmets, horse-hair plumes, brazen greaves; hollow shields are piled upon the floor and swords of steel. Let us never forget these things.” The first of the lyric poets, the mercenary wanderer Archilochus of Paros (seventh century BCE), sang of the important Greek value of vengeance: “One great thing I know: how to repay with bitter wrongs, wrongs done to me.” Other lyric poets addressed the social and political challenges of their day. The sixth-century poet Theognis of Megara, for instance, opposed the democratic changes taking place in his hometown as signaling a loss of traditional values: “Gone is faith, goodness, moderation.” Solon of Athens (seventh–sixth centuries BCE) criticized the new attachment to wealth over values: “The man whose riches satisfy his greed is not richer, for all those heaps and hoards, than some poor man who has enough to feed and clothe his corpse with such as Zeus affords. I have no use for men who steal and cheat; the fruit of evil poisons those who eat. Some wicked men are rich, some good men poor, but I would rather trust in what’s secure; our virtue sticks with us and makes us strong, but money changes owners all day long.” Like Theognis and Solon, Callinus of Ephesus, Alcmaeon of Sardis, Stesichoros of Himera, and other singers decried tyranny and revolution, bemoaned the loss of ethics, and called for social justice. Still other lyric poets lavished their praises on the Greek athletes of the day, eliciting lessons for all humanity from their failures and victories. Pindar of Thebes (fifth century BCE) stands out here; he made his living composing victory odes at the various Panhellenic games for athletes, their families, and their communities. Pindar presented men and gods as both born of the Earth, related in their intellect and talents, especially the heroes of the games, who pursued excellence tempered by restraint: “He who wins, of a sudden, some noble prize in the rich years of youth

Arts: Poetry, Lyric

is raised high with hope; his manhood takes wings; he has in his heart what is better than wealth. . . . When god-given splendor visits him, a bright radiance plays over him, and how sweet is this life!” Finally, some lyric poets expressed more intimate concerns, more attuned to deeply personal feelings. The seventh-century BCE Mimnermus of Colophon, for instance, lamented growing old: “Though one were handsome, when one’s prime is past, not even one’s sons will honor one at last.” He also celebrated the joys of deep love: “Let there be truth between me and you; that is the best of all possessions.” In this, he shared the approach of Sappho of Lesbos (seventh–sixth centuries BCE), the earliest attested female poet in the Greek world. Her work demonstrated great passion: “Whenever I glance at you, it seems that I can say nothing at all, but my tongue is broken in silence, and, at that instant, a light fire rushes beneath my skin, I can no longer see anything in my eyes and my ears are thundering.” Greece’s lyric poets, then, created intensely personal, often uniquely emotional, verses, grounded in real life and frequently in their own experiences. Many of them had unconventional lives, full of what people today might call adventure and change, but what their contemporaries, and they themselves, would have regarded as misfortune. Sappho’s challenges as a wife, mother, widow, teacher, and lover permeate her lines; Alcaeus and Archilochus both served on the battlefield; Theognis suffered exile for his political beliefs; Solon battled social inequities in an effort to prevent revolutionary upheaval from destroying his own city; Pindar observed the trials and tribulations of individual athletes up close in the greatest communal settings of Greek culture. Lyric poets, then, also treated themes that they cast as universal among all Greek people, relevant on an individual and on a communal level. They served as significant commentators on their society and on their times; their feelings and observations resonated with generations of Greeks. The tradition of lyric poetry appealed originally to the aristocratic families of the Greek communities; most lyric poets came from the aristocracy (even if many of them appear to have been the “black sheep” of their families) and composed their songs for aristocratic patrons in commemoration of aristocratic achievements. Yet, what appealed to the Greek aristocracy also appealed to the rest of the Greek population; the latter generally admired the aristocrats, many of them studied their ways in school, all of them celebrated their achievements, and some even attempted to emulate the aristocratic lifestyle. As a result, lyric poetry became something of value for all the Greeks, regardless of status. See also: Arts: Dance; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Poetry, Epic; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Family and Gender: Burial; Friendship and Love; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Civil War;

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Phalanx; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Education; Greek Language Groups; Primary Documents: Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE); Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown); Poetry—Greek Poets on Love; Poetry—Greek Poets on War FURTHER READING Bowra, C. M. 1961. Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcman to Simonides. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press. Lefkowitz, M. R. 1981. The Lives of the Greek Poets. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Snodgrass, A. M. 1980. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

POTTERY. See PAINTING, POTTERY RHETORIC Many have argued rightly that the climate and the general environmental and social conditions in which the ancient Greeks lived contributed significantly to the creation of a culture in which it was hard to hide from one another, as many people in modern societies are wont to do. In such an “open” culture, the Greeks engaged in quite a lot of conversation and debate, sometimes touchy, always quick-witted, to which such talkativeness one’s local political system might even add further fuel. No wonder, then, that Greeks just about everywhere came to respect and value excellence in public speaking, the art of rhetoric (rhe¯toreia). Greek traditions of rhetoric stretch back to the speeches contained in the epic poetry of Homer and Hesiod; their search for meaning and truth through the spoken word, and the aggressive competiveness and persuasiveness of the spoken word, continued to resonate in the works of later Greek authors, some perhaps legendary (like Orpheus, Musaeus, and Epimenides), others grounded in history though still mythologized (like Thales of Miletus, Solon of Athens, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mytilene, Periander of Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindos, Pherecydes of Syros, Theognis of Megara, and so on, some of whom were included by the ancients among the “Seven Sages”). Whether composing an impassioned speech, like that delivered by Homer’s Priam when he begs Achilles for the body of dead Hector, or a seemingly

Arts: Rhetoric

simple aphorism, like those attributed to the Seven Sages, ancient Greeks seem to have had a natural understanding of rhetoric and a natural instinct for rhetorical construction. The Sophistic “movement,” beginning in the fifth century BCE, heightened these natural proclivities and created out of them an art of rhetoric. A Sicilian Greek named Corax and his pupil Tisias, both from Syracuse, started the ball rolling by setting themselves to become experts in the form and use of language, that is, to precisely analyze and systematize the characteristics and techniques of excellent speaking and writing. As they did so, they noted the effects of communication on listeners and readers, and the incredible power that human language has in molding the world around us. Human beings, they observed, poets, wise men, or what have you, use language not just to describe the world, but to establish values, influence the minds of others, play on one another’s emotions, and so on, that is, to create the reality humans want, or at least as much as they can. Inspired by this revelation, Corax and Tisias harnessed their conclusions as a “scientific” skill (techne¯ in Greek), which they claimed they could teach to anyone who studied with them. In other words, anyone could mold the world to suit his own interests through the power of rhetoric; taken more cynically, and perhaps more subversively, anyone might learn the skills necessary to become a new Homer, a new Sage, or a new political leader. Rhetorical training could trump divine inspiration and noble pedigree. Later Sophists introduced a variety of rhetorical techniques as they built upon the teachings of their Syracusan predecessors. Some, like Prodicus of Ceos, emphasized precise delivery in terms of style and choice of words; others, like Thrasymachus of Athens, focused on the affective or emotional repercussions of language, its psychological impact; still others, like Hippias of Elis, wowed his audiences with his phenomenal memory, overwhelming them with his knowledge of many subjects. Perhaps the greatest exponent of rhetoric among the Sophists was Gorgias of Leontini, who alternately charmed or disturbed the people of Athens, a community which he frequented often (if he did not permanently move there from his native Sicily). Gorgias understood the patterns of reasoning hidden in human language as well as the emotional energy of language, especially the stirring excitement— similar to that aroused by athletic and other contests—that might be caused among listeners by a properly constructed and delivered speech. Gorgias paid special attention to the logical arrangement of arguments (like the four causes for Helen’s leaving of Menelaus in his famous Encomium of Helen), which would juxtapose likely alternatives in a search for the probable truth (the only kind of truth in which Gorgias himself believed) and create the appearance of fair and balanced coverage of his topic (whether or not that was really the case); furthermore, he always adapted

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his material to his audience, thereby taking advantage of kairos, the “moment” or “opportunity” presented by any given speaking engagement. Such “sophisticated” rhetorical arts proved useful, applicable to many real-life situations in the highly interactive world of the ancient Greeks. Whereas the Sophists were typically itinerant teachers of rhetoric, other experts in the field eventually opened up permanent schools where they could offer instruction in the art. Best known were the Athenian rhetoricians of the fourth century BCE, Isocrates and Lysias. Both established their schools in their own homes; the former focused his pupils on the big political issues of the day, while the latter taught the art of composing the most effective speeches to be used by defendants or plaintiffs in the law courts. Both learned much from the Sophists who preceded them and they bequeathed to later generations of Greeks the notion that rhetoric should form one of the primary elements of any sound education. Hence, the profusion of schools in Hellenistic and Roman times that taught rhetoric, either exclusively or, more often, as part of a “liberal arts” curriculum. The followers of Socrates criticized the Sophists and the rhetoricians for teaching their students supposedly sham knowledge, lacking in moral substance, and the pandering skills to please and charm the people regardless of the truth. Antisthenes, a close friend of Socrates and the founder of the Cynic movement, argued that independence of character, which he regarded as the goal of human life, requires action and courage, not skill with words; Plato, the most famous pupil of Socrates and the chief rival of Isocrates for students, would have essentially agreed on the frivolousness of rhetoric. Yet Plato is perhaps the greatest of all Greek authors in terms of his rhetorical prowess; his star pupil, Aristotle, and the latter’s associate, Theophrastus, became famous theoreticians of the rhetorical arts. In the end, the Greek world needed rhetorical skill in order to function. Whether in the marketplace, in the law courts, in the council chamber, on the assembly grounds, under aristocracies or democracies, and even monarchies, ancient Greeks had to be able to discuss, debate, and persuade effectively; similar linguistic agility and complexity suffused their poetry, plays, and books on all subjects. Rural Greeks, and more conservative urban Greeks, might have harbored suspicions about city-slicker smooth-talkers trained in the rhetorical art, but even they could not have really denied the importance of rhetoric in the entirety of Greek culture and across the broad span of Greek history from Homeric times through the Roman Empire. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Platonic; Sophists; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters; Politics and Warfare: Assemblies; Councils; Democracies; Science and Technology: Education; Primary Documents: Aeschines on Foreign Negotiation and Domestic Mud-Slinging (343 BCE)

Arts: Satyr Plays FURTHER READING Clarke, M. L. 1971. Higher Education in the Ancient World. London and New York: Routledge. Cole, T. 1991. The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Guthrie, W. K. C. 1971. The Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hussey, E. 1972. The Presocratics. New York: Scribner’s Sons. Kennedy, G. 1963. The Art of Persuasion in Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kennedy, G. 1994. A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kerferd, G. B. 1981. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pernot, L. 2005. Rhetoric in Antiquity. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. Rankin, H. D. 1983. Sophists, Socrates, and Cynics. London: Croom Helm. Robb, K. 1994. Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece. New York: Oxford University Press. Russell, D. A. 1993. Greek Declamation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitmarsh, T. 2005. The Second Sophistic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography. London and New York: Routledge. Worthington, I., ed. 1994. Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action. London and New York: Routledge. Zanker, P. 1995. The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity. Translated by A. Shapiro. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

SATYR PLAYS In Athens of the fifth century BCE, the eponymous archon, one of the top officials of the city-state, had the responsibility of putting together the City Dionysia, a major springtime religious and recreational festival in honor of the god Dionysus. In their myths about that god, the Greeks told of him being accompanied by creatures known as satyrs, hybrids of human and animal form. The Athenian archons incorporated the mythic role of the satyr into the celebrations of the City Dionysia through the staging of satyr plays. The mythological concept of satyrs seems to have come from the Dorian Greeks of the Peloponnese, where satyrs were regarded as legendary wild men, unclothed and therefore uncivilized, semi-barbaric because they were human above the waist but horse below (except for being two-legged instead of fourlegged). Ionian Greeks of western Anatolia seem to have fused them with myths about Silenus, a bald-headed old man of the wilderness with unlimited appetites, especially for nymphs and wine, who had helped raise the baby Dionysus. The

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combined Dorian-Ionian satyrs thus became the sons of Silenus and, like him, the friends of Dionysus, m ­ ischief-makers but sage-like, at one and the same time base and close to the divine. As a result, satyrs were the first to become drunk from wine, but also virtuosos of the musical pipe and the lyre, long before “normal” human beings took up such divine arts. In preparation for the festival of Dionysus, the eponymous archon conducted auditions and interviews with citizen playwrights and their troupes of citizen actors who wished to demonstrate their religious devotion and their civic pride by performing their productions in honor of the god. The archon would choose three playwrights to stage tragic dramas; in fact, each of them would be expected to stage three such dramas, all in a single day. In addition, though, they would also have to stage a satyr play, in duration shorter by half compared to their dramatic productions. Each set of dramas and its satyr play were funded by wealthy citizens (chore¯goi) selected by the eponymous archon. Scholars debate whether each satyr play at Athens was performed after the three tragedies of its playwright or whether it was placed between his second and third tragedies. In either case, it would have offered some release from the somber mood and tensions experienced by an Athenian audience in their fairly concentrated viewing of the very serious themes of tragic drama because satyr plays seem to have parodied the myths acted out in the tragedies they accompanied. Satyr plays seem to have included the same three actors as the tragedies with which they were staged; those actors appeared just as majestic, serious, and wellcostumed as they did in their dramatic performances. Yet the stars of a satyr play, no doubt, were the singer-dancers of the play’s chorus, probably the same in number as in the tragic dramas of their playwright-director. Like the actors, the chorus members were all men, as was typical in formal Greek theater, but unlike the actors, who were costumed as heroic figures of legend, the men of the chorus were all dressed in costume as satyrs. They were naked from the waist up, except perhaps for draped goatskins, wore horse’s tails attached to shaggy shorts, and covered their faces with masks of a pudgy appearance, with pug noses, moustaches and beards, as well as goat horns and lots of bushy hair on top. The Athenian aristocrat and general, Alcibiades (c. 450–404 BCE), once remarked that his teacher and friend Socrates (469–399 BCE) looked very much like a satyr, particularly the infamous Marsyas—an ironically foreboding statement considering that Marsyas had been executed, flayed alive for failing against the god Apollo in a musical contest (to which Marsyas himself had arrogantly challenged Apollo)! Many small fragments of ancient satyr plays survive, but two examples, a fragment with about half of Sophocles’ Trackers (Ichneutae) and the miraculously whole Cyclops by Euripides, will suffice here to illustrate their characteristics.

Arts: Satyr Plays

In the Trackers, the god Apollo laments the theft of his sacred cattle, having searched through central and southern Greece for them, and appeals to the rustic inhabitants of the woodlands (rarely the focus of Greek tragedies), offering a golden award for tracking down and recovering them. Silenus inexplicably appears to claim that prize for himself and his sons, the chorus of satyrs, and Apollo promises all of them a golden basin and their liberty (from something unspecified), if successful. The satyrs engage in the search, behaving like bloodhounds more than men; indeed, even Silenus compares them to apes, hedgehogs, and dogs. Yet he also describes them as Bacchantes, that is, followers of Dionysus, who often behaved in wild and unfathomable ways. When they arrive at the cave where the thief had taken the stolen cattle, Silenus berates the satyrs for their fear of a strange sound, the music of the lyre, which had never been heard before. Shouting threats to the thief inside the cave, the satyrs are then confronted by the nymph Cyllene, the spirit of the mountain, who appears to them and explains that the inventor of the lyre is the “infant” Hermes, the proverbial trickster deity, who is innocent of any theft. They insist that he is the thief for whom they had been searching. At a loss what to do to get the cattle away from him, the satyrs call upon Apollo himself. The papyrus breaks off at that point. In the Cyclops, the main action takes place outside the cave of the one-eyed giants, where Silenus and his satyrs have been shipwrecked in a search for their leader Dionysus, who has himself been kidnapped by human agents of his stepmother, Hera. Silenus and the satyrs have become the slaves of Polyphemus, the infamous Cyclops. The hero Odysseus and his crew then arrive and exchange wine with Silenus for the cheeses and meat of the Cyclops. When Polyphemus arrives to find the Greeks taking his property, though, Silenus pretends (with suitably graphic, violent language) to have been unable to resist the visiting “thieves.” His sons, the satyrs, side with the heroes, and a clever verbal exchange between Odysseus and the Cyclops ends with the Cyclops forcing the crew into his cave. Having witnessed the murder of two of his men, but also having gotten Polyphemus drunk, Odysseus then enlists the satyrs (who have not been that impressed with the hero’s tales) in his escape plan, promising them their freedom. They agree out of brash courage, which quickly deserts them when the deed of blinding the Cyclops actually needs to be done; they return to their characteristic cravenly cowardice, but they do sing Odysseus and his crew on their mission and then tease the groping, blind Polyphemus until they depart on Odysseus’ ship. The language of satyr plays, judging from comments made by various ancient authors and by the extant examples of the plays themselves, thus carried over from the style of tragic drama. Similarly, they took up the story lines of traditional myths. The language and the stories were then twisted through the sexual

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innuendo, vulgarities, animalistic sounds, slapstick behavior, raucous activity, and excitability of the satyrs. Moreover, unlike in many tragic dramas, which might even lose sight of the god for whom the festival was held, satyr plays tended to keep their focus on Dionysus or Dionysiac themes, like infants, riddles, marvels, and, of course, the adventures or misadventures of his friends, the satyrs. Some scholars assert that satyr plays and tragic plays developed in tandem with one another, while others argue that the tragic genre was born, in fact, out of the satyr play, and still others follow that part of the ancient Greek tradition which credited Pratinas of Phlius (contemporary with Aeschylus), with the “invention” of the satyr play. Regardless of its origin, the satyr play did not fare as well as tragedy did. In the fifth century BCE, Athenians would have enjoyed three satyr plays, each one held on a separate day of the City Dionysia; early in the fourth century, they dropped two of the satyr plays. The one remaining satyr play was staged on the first day of the theatrical performances, before any of the other productions. The reasons behind this change remain unclear, but it certainly would have altered the intellectual and emotional experience of theater-going; a semi-comic start to the proceedings would have been much different than a semi-comic relief afterwards. Moreover, by the end of the fourth century, satyr plays were apparently no longer performed at all in the festival competitions. They were staged on other occasions, though, and continued to be in Roman times, perhaps simply as relics of bygone days. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Housing and Community: Country Life; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups FURTHER READING Bieber, M. 1961. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1984. Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Csapo, E., and M. C. Miller, eds. 2008. The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Csapo, E., and W. J. Slater. 1994. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Goldhill, S., and R. Osborne, eds. 1999. Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ley, G. 1991. A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Arts: Sculpture, Archaic Lucas, D. W. 1959. The Greek Tragic Poets. 2nd ed. London: Cohen and West. Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. 1968. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. 2nd ed. Revised by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Seaford, R. A. S. 1984. The Cyclops of Euripides. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sutton, D. F. 1980. The Greek Satyr Play. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain Verlag. Webster, T. B. L. 1956. Greek Theatre Production. London: Methuen. Winkler, J. J., and F. I. Zeitlin, eds. 1989. Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

SCULPTURE, ARCHAIC Some of the earliest artifacts of ancient Greek culture consist of sculptural figures (  plastoi, andriantes). This artistic tradition continued through the rest of Greek history, marking one of the most significant aspects of the Greek identity. Generations of sculptors (andriantopoioi, tektones, glyptai) attempted to capture the forms they saw in the world around them, especially the human form, in various materials. In the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), Greeks developed skills inherited from the past, adopted and adapted new skills from abroad, and experimented with a sculptural vocabulary uniquely their own. Archaeological evidence shows that during the Mycenaean Era (c. 1700–1100 BCE) and the Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE), Greek sculptors worked bronze and terracotta into figurines, human and animal. We believe that most of these fell into the category of votive offerings, that is, they were purchased by religious devotees who wished to request something from or promise something to the divine powers. A strong connection to religion remained a feature of sculpture in the Archaic Period. While Greek sculptors continued to produce a great variety of figurines in that era, they also became emboldened to try their hand at enlarged versions of their smaller products. The impetus came from the desire for cult statues as the focal points in their new, larger sanctuaries. So, in the eighth century, they began to create life-size figures of gods and goddesses, carved out of wood and sometimes plated with bronze or precious metals. Trade contacts with ancient Egypt also exerted a particular influence on Greek artistry in the Archaic Period. From the seventh century, Greek sculptors were using tools and techniques adopted from the Egyptians both for quarrying and for carving stone, adapted, of course, to work with marbles and limestones uncommon in Egypt. This is most evident in the life-size and larger-than-life marble statues, the Greek kouros (young man) and kore¯ (young woman) types. Examples of these types from across the Greek world face strictly forward; they are highly stylized rather than highly individualized and more or less static, aside from the slight forward

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movement of the left leg. All are qualities which they shared with their Egyptian counterparts, and computer analysis has confirmed that the Greeks employed the same system for mapping out the statue from the block of stone as the Egyptians used. The Greek works did show striking innovations, however. The kouros was, unlike any Egyptian sculpture, entirely nude, and the sculpting of his body revealed an attempt on the part of the artist to convey musculature and other aspects of anatomy with much more precision. The kore¯ was not nude at all, but clothed from neck to ankles (except for bare forearms), and covered from head to toe in a wealth of detail, including complex hairstyles, intricate jewelry, and elegant clothing, all sculpted and painted with attenMarble statue of a young man, or kouros, c. 590– tion to exquisite precision. Many 580 BCE. Athenians of the Archaic Period placed such statues as markers atop the graves of elite features, especially the patterns citizens. Greek sculptors evidently learned from of the clothing, illustrate motifs Egyptian models to construct the very formulaic, from the Near East and Egypt. geometric style of kouroi, which communicated a Yet, unlike her Egyptian models, sense of eternality to the statue. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Fletcher Fund, 1932) which tended to have a sensuous appearance, their clothing contoured, revealing, sometimes diaphanous, the Greek female type tends to resemble a stone pillar, elegant, but wrapped up tightly in her stiff garments. Greek sculptors thus expressed in their art the strongly contrasting, but prevailing, perspectives on the male and female forms within their culture: the kouros embodied an athletic idealization of the male body, displayed in all its glory, while the kore¯ embodied the modesty of the female in Greek society, displaying the wealth of her household but little of herself. Archaic artists may have been attempting to bring their works alive in as real a fashion as they could, or as they were permitted to do by the social mores of

Arts: Sculpture, Archaic

the time, yet the faces of their sculptures reveal little individual identity. Individual expression was sacrificed to the stereotype, especially seen in the so-called Archaic smile, a look of contentment mixed with aloofness that characterizes all such pieces; kouroi and korai seem to look right past the viewer, as if transcending the current world (which history tells us was filled with excitement, turmoil, change), disconnecting themselves from contemporary concerns and issues, perhaps to ponder something deeper and farther away. This likely has to do with the purpose behind such statues: well-to-do Greeks of the period placed them on the grave sites of their relations, intended not as portraits but rather as tributes to the deceased; good examples are the kore¯ dedicated to the young Athenian woman Phrasikleia (c. 540 BCE) and the kouros dedicated to the young Athenian soldier Kroisos (c. 525 BCE). A brisk trade in such figures characterized the era, with unique local styles being produced, for instance, in Athens, Boeotia, and on the islands of Naxos, Paros, and Samos. In addition to their freestanding sculptures in stone, Greek artists of the Archaic Period also merged sculpture with architecture in the embellishment of their temples. They paid special attention to the entablature, the horizontal beams that ran atop the temple columns. Sculptors enhanced the upper portion (the frieze) of the entablatures with triglyphs, panels with three carved verticals, in a sense mimicking temple columns but more abstracted; evidence suggests that even the oldest Greek temples had wooden triglyphs long before they were replaced with stone ones. In between the triglyph panels, the artists placed metopes. The Temple of Zeus at Olympia, for instance, where the Olympic Games were staged every four years, was decorated with metopes (close to life-size) depicting the Labors of Heracles; in addition to being one of the most cherished sons of Zeus, Heracles had, according to one prominent tradition, founded the Games. Though these particular metopes date to a later period, they illustrate the purpose of such carved marble panels throughout Greek sculpture: the depiction of narrative scenes in some way relevant to the god honored in the particular temple, the telling of a story or stories for worshippers to learn and remember. By means of metopes, the Greeks incorporated techniques of relief sculpture so common across the Ancient Near East and Egypt and experimented with greater movement of figures compared to freestanding sculptures. In later forms of temple architecture, like the Ionic, artists abandoned metopes, opting for a more streamlined style of decorating the entablature, seen in multiple bands of marble in the lower section (or architrave) and alternating rows of repetitive, geometrical designs, such as the egg-and-dart motif (symbolic of fertility), where the frieze used to be. The exteriors of temples, then, became more mathematical in aspect, purer and less cluttered in a sense. Yet, later still, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Greek artists and their patrons again embraced

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sculptural decoration of their temples’ exterior surfaces, more flamboyant and extensive than ever. Greek engineers also opened up a perfect opportunity for artists by constructing slightly pitched timber roofs to cover their temples, creating empty triangular spaces between entablature and roof along the shorter ends of the buildings. These spaces or pediments were ideal places for ensembles of sculptured statuary, intended to tell a significant religious story like the metopes. The west pediment from the Temple to Aphaia on Aegina (c. 490 BCE), for example, depicted a complex battle scene associated with the goddess; the famous fallen warrior from this pediment, posing with his right hand in an attempt to remove a spear from his chest, shows the influence of the sculptural experimentation of the period, as he is definitely freed from the stiff verticality of his kouros predecessors, but he still sports their Archaic smile, headdress, and other physical features. Finally, in addition to all their work in terracotta and stone, Greek artists in the Archaic Period continued to create sophisticated items in bronze. Bronze sculpture, especially, held great appeal in the art market of the time, and much of this was geared toward votive offerings at temples. For instance, there was a great demand for elaborately molded bronze cauldrons, as individuals and whole communities frequently utilized such items in their sacrificial rituals across the Greek world. Greeks of the period seem to have specially favored bronzeware decorated with motifs from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as lion’s heads or mythical creatures, like griffins. Skilled artists also cast bronze for the production of lifesize statues, such as those of the popular heroes Harmodius and Aristogeiton commissioned from the sculptor Antenor by the Athenian state (c. 509 BCE) and set up in the agora, the heart of the city. Archaic sculpture thus demonstrated another key characteristic of the Greek mindset: if not religious in nature, it was still quite public. Greeks of the Archaic Period relied on skilled sculptors (to us, largely anonymous now) to embellish the peaks or ends of their temple pediments with delicately molded terracotta akroˉte¯ria, to fill those pediments with majestically arranged scenes in stone, and to provide the people with terracotta, stone, and bronze works of art to dedicate to their honored and beloved dead and to their revered divinities. Such artists held commissions of great significance and established standards to be built upon by later generations. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Pottery-Making; Family and Gender: Men; Mourning/Memorialization; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age,

Arts: Sculpture, Hellenistic

Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Geometry; Greek Language Groups; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Beazley, J. D., and B. Ashmole. 1966. Greek Sculpture and Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bluemel, C. 1955. Greek Sculptors at Work. New York: Phaidon Press. Boardman, J. 1991. Greek Sculpture—The Archaic Period: A Handbook. London: Thames & Hudson. Carpenter, R. 1960. Greek Sculpture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Osborne, R. 1998. Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Snodgrass, A. M. 1980. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

SCULPTURE, HELLENISTIC Sculptural techniques and motifs in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) evolved from Late Classical traditions (c. 400–323 BCE). Compared with their predecessors, sculptors in both periods benefited from new sources of funding and new patrons. Indeed, some of those patrons became recognized connoisseurs and collectors of fine art, thereby generating a booming trade in sculpture never seen before in the world of the ancient Greeks. Both private and public tastes in art were undergoing changes in these eras, to which sculptors responded with new artistic masterpieces. From Classical into Hellenistic times, the desire continued to present anatomically detailed, seemingly perfect human figures, emerging into three-dimensional space. For example, the bronze statue known as the Ephebe of Antikythera, a survivor of ancient shipwreck, and the Apoxyomenos (c. 330 BCE), originally in bronze but now known only in later stone copies, belong to the same class of innovation. The Ephebe may have been the work of Euphranor of Corinth; the original Apoxyomenos was certainly the work of Lysippus of Sicyon. Born in the Late Classical Age, these artists belonged to the tradition of that time of breaking figures “out of the box,” but they went further by elongating their form, thus creating thinner-looking statues, less robust than their Classical forebears, with smaller hands and heads; this approach made their statues appear taller and sleeker. They also brought the statues even further into the viewer’s space, or perhaps one could say they brought the viewer into the space of the figure. The physically

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fit and muscular Ephebe stands firmly on his left leg, while his right bends backward, giving the impression of someone stopping in mid-stride; his left arm hangs at his side, like that of someone slowly walking, while his right extends outward and further to the right, followed by the turning of his head and the gaze of his eyes. He held something at one time in that right hand with a grip resembling that of a modern-day baseball pitcher; he was displaying that something to passersby. Apoxyomenos stands similarly, except that his right leg bends and swings outward, giving the impression of relaxation; he stretches out his right arm, but directly at the viewer, while bending his left toward it, as if to scrape off the sweat and grime from exercise (a common practice in ancient Greek society). The athlete here has a less well-defined chest and is not in movement, but the upper part of his body is clearly in motion. Both figures retain elements of the Polykleitan style, as in their chiastic poses, but they have a dynamism that carries them much further into our world. Euphranor and Lysippus produced their most famous pieces in the Late Classical Age, but they set new standards in the art of sculpture for the Hellenistic Era to follow; hence, also the many copies and variations on their works in that period. Lysippus’ pieces gained notoriety also for their significant heads of hair, like his busts of Alexander the Great; though both Euphranor and Lysippus worked for the Macedonian royal family, the latter served as Alexander’s preferred and official court sculptor for much of the young king’s life and as such immortalized the expressions and personality of the famous conqueror for all future generations. Lysippus especially seems to have enjoyed playing with the much-vaunted “proper” proportions of Classical sculpture, as seen in his two famous versions of the hero Heracles. One he created as a looming, huge image, exaggerated in pose and musculature, where just the hand of the statue was almost twice as large as a person’s head; by looking at this image, the viewer could easily imagine the fabled strength of Heracles. The other he created in both an extra-large size and a miniature size, depicting the hero seated at table ready to celebrate; we know that the original of the smaller version was made for Alexander the Great, who carried it with him on his conquests. No original survives of either type, but many copies of the former (like the Farnese Hercules) and of the latter (Heracles Epitrapezios) have been found, both in small and large versions. Even the later copies of the Heracles types clearly capture Lysippus’ renowned interest in the emotional state of his subjects; both in facial expressions and in body language, he explored the personality of Heracles, weary on the one hand, elated in anticipation on the other. Still, he was not alone in this, as his contemporaries, Scopas of Paros and Cephisodotus of Athens, shared the same interest, illustrated best perhaps in the suffering expression of the former’s Pothos (for the Temple

Arts: Sculpture, Hellenistic

of Athena at Megara, mid-fourth century BCE) and the tenderness in the latter’s Peace and Wealth (for the Athenian Areopagus, early fourth century). Similarly, the unknown artist who cast the Boxer of the Baths (late fourth century) out of bronze and copper attempted to convey all the physical damage, pain, and suffering experienced by a real boxer in the Greek games, leaving no detail on the face, hands, or back unattended to. In the following century, the sculptor Polyeuktos followed suit when commissioned by the Athenians (280 BCE) to construct a portrait statue of the orator Demosthenes, one of the few leaders who had stood up to increasing Macedonian power in the Late Classical Age and eventually paid for doing so with his life. The original bronze was placed in the heart of the city, the agora, among other heroes and near an altar to the Olympian deities; it thus made a powerful political statement at a time when the Macedonians were still attempting to control, if not dominate, Athens and other more independent city-states. Artistically, it reaffirms the Lysippean preoccupation with mental and emotional states, as Polyeuktos sculpted the face of Demosthenes with great intensity and gravity of purpose, concerned, focused, unbending, thus providing the Athenians, decades after the orator’s demise, with their image of what he was. Even more impressive for such expressiveness of character and emotion were the Dying Gaul and the Suicidal Galatian and his wife (originally in bronze, both late third century BCE, and perhaps the work of Epigonos, official sculptor of the Attalids); the statues (known now only in later stone copies) formed two parts of a five-part monument at Pergamum erected in thanks to “Athena Bringer of Victory.” They elaborated on the motif of sympathizing with the emotional states of others, in this case, the anguish of death and resistance in the face of defeat, extending such sympathy even to the “barbarian” Celts, the worthy adversaries. Topping them all, however, is the marble group of Laocoön and his Sons (perhaps a Rhodian copy of a now-lost bronze original from second century BCE Pergamum). Wild and contorted in its movement, its three figures sway and strain in different directions as they attempt to escape the clutches of the sea serpent that will inevitably destroy them. Their agonized faces capture the sheer terror of mere humans in an impossible battle against the gods and destiny. The Great Altar of Pergamum (c. 175 BCE) shows similar drama and angst, effects heightened by the deep drilling technique employed. In the fresh attention Hellenistic sculptors paid to the female form, they tended to develop much more optimistic motifs. For instance, the Nike of Samothrace (c.  200 BCE), though its creator remains unknown, clearly takes its inspiration from Paionios’ Nike at Olympia from nearly two centuries earlier. Likely commissioned in commemoration of a naval victory (though whether a Macedonian or a Rhodian one remains a point of disagreement among scholars), the former was set

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up on the island of Samothrace in the famous sanctuary of the Great Gods as a thank offering. Winged Victory stands on a sculpted ship’s prow; a powerful headwind rushes around her, pressing back her wings as well as her clothing, which clings to her breasts, abdomen, and legs (head and arms are missing). Unlike the Nike of Paionios, this one is more suggestive and less revealing; rather than sensuality, the artist shows his primary interest in conveying a sense of movement in the deep folds of stone cloth; he also lavishes similar attention on the wings of Nike, which have all the textures of real feathers. Marble statue group depicting the murder of On the other hand, the sculpthe Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons by a sea tor who carved the Aphrodite serpent, first century BCE or first century CE. Now of Melos, or Venus de Milo (late in the Vatican Museum, this sculpture copies an second century BCE), clearly original attributed to the Rhodian artists Agesander, Athenadoros, and Polydoros and may have intended on conveying motion adorned the villa of the Roman emperor Tiberius at and sensuality in equal measure. Sperlonga. It demonstrates the attention to intense The torso and legs of the goddess emotion and dynamic movement characteristic of slightly turn in opposite direcHellenistic art. (Eishier/Dreamstime.com) tions; her back bends forward, as does her left leg, but her whole body seems to sway to the right. All this creates the impression of twisting movement, as does her clothing, which seems precariously about to fall below the waist; her nudity above the waist is far less provocative than the impending sense of full nudity caused by the illusion of motion. The artist (probably Alexander of Antioch) has captured what many Greeks of the time period would have considered the essence of Aphrodite, her mystery, her powers of seduction. The Aphrodite of Melos has its inspiration from the eroticism and sensuality of Praxiteles’ Cnidian Aphrodite from Classical times. Two other fine examples illustrate further the trend in Hellenistic art of experimenting with variations on the theme of the fully nude female form. The Capitoline Venus (second century CE) tries with both hands to hide herself from viewers as she bends forward and turns her head away in supposed embarrassment. The Crouching Aphrodite (original

Arts: Sculpture, Hellenistic

early third century BCE) goes in a different direction, as the goddess practically kneels down to prevent anyone from catching a glimpse of her nudity, again using both arms to shield herself from view. In some respects, Hellenistic sculpture became busier than previous forms of art, some would say more cluttered, others would say more multidimensional. Statues of river gods, like the River Nile in the Vatican Museum (c. 200 CE), illustrate this point. A tumult of symbolic figures surround the long, reclining figure of a mature male to inform the viewer that he represents the very spirit of the Nile. In other respects, though, artists of the period seemed to scale their focus down to the quiet experiences of everyday people. They created bronze images like the so-called Spinarius (unknown date and artist), for example, which may present a young athlete or, perhaps more likely, a street urchin; he concentrates his attention not on some grand cosmic or heroic event but on the simple task of removing a thorn from his foot. The scene comes straight out of daily life, especially in the big, hectic, cosmopolitan cities of the Hellenistic Era. Just as topical were the representations of lower-class women so common in the time period, such as the Old Market Woman (first-century CE copy of second-century BCE original), who is probably an old prostitute carrying offerings to the god Dionysus, the Old Shepherdess (or Shepherd, dated perhaps to second century BCE) bringing her/his little lamb to the butcher, or especially the Old Drunken Woman (perhaps third century BCE) sitting in a corner holding her jug of wine in her lap. What is interesting and curious about all this is how such pieces seem to have been commissioned by private persons for the decoration of their homes as well as by public entities for outdoor display. Sculptors in the Hellenistic Era created fascinating studies of male and female, human and divine, exploring old age and youth, vigor and weakness, beauty and ugliness, poverty and abundance. They incorporated what they had learned from previous times but also responded to the psychology and tastes of new times. In their age, Greeks still concerned themselves with the reputation of the community and its respect for the gods, but they paid more attention than earlier generations to themselves as individuals, with feelings, needs, and desires that were at once intensely personal and universal, expressible through art; their artists could still portray elegance and refinement, but had an equal fascination, as the general public did, with the irrational, the anxious, and the frenetic. Hence, Hellenistic sculpture possesses a drama and a flourish unseen in prior ages of Greek art. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Metalworking; Family and Gender: Men; Mourning/Memorialization; Women; Fashion

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and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Beazley, J. D., and B. Ashmole. 1966. Greek Sculpture and Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bluemel, C. 1955. Greek Sculptors at Work. New York: Phaidon Press. Boardman, J., ed. 1993. The Oxford History of Classical Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burn, L. 2004. Hellenistic Art. Los Angeles: Getty Publications. Carpenter, R. 1960. Greek Sculpture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Osborne, R. 1998. Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pollitt, J. J. 1986. Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, R. R. R. 1991. Hellenistic Sculpture: A Handbook. London: Thames & Hudson. Spivey, N. 2013. Greek Sculpture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SCULPTURE/FREESTANDING STATUARY, CLASSICAL Like artists of the Archaic Period (c. 800–c. 490 BCE), Greeks in the Classical Age (c. 490–323 BCE) sculpted many freestanding statues to commemorate gods, mythical heroes, and famous human beings out of history. They experimented further than their predecessors, though, removing their creations from the stiff, boxlike positioning of the Archaic kouros and kore¯ to make images that appeared to move within three-dimensional space. In the process, Classical sculptors established a system of mathematical perfection in their works, pursuing a desire to present humans in the most perfect—almost godlike—manner possible. Many artists of the period worked in bronze because its greater plasticity and tensile cohesion allowed for the freest possible “movement” of the figures they created, without the worries of breakage from simple gravity so common to stonework. Some precious Classical bronzes have miraculously survived in ancient shipwrecks, like the two warriors called the Riace Bronzes (c. 450 BCE), perhaps by Phidias (the close friend of Pericles who directed the Acropolis refit in Athens) or at least inspired by his studio. They represent the “severe style” within Classical art, an emphasis on gracefulness and divinity in the human form. Scholars believe that these large masterpieces (each over six feet tall) must have stood in a sacred space, perhaps at Delphi, where they might have formed part of a large group of bronze figures dedicated to the god Apollo from the grateful Athenian people after

Arts: Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical

their victory over the Persians at Marathon. In any event, they remind us that Classical art was intended to be seen in public view. Besides his work in bronze, Phidias had a reputation for his complex sculptures in ivory and gold, known as chryselephantine work, where sizable portions of the figures consisted of these precious materials as well as bronze surrounding a wooden framework. In this regard, he became most famous for his two gigantic chryselephantine figures of Zeus and Athena. The former he designed (c. 435 BCE) as the centerpiece, the cult statue, inside the grand Temple of Zeus at Olympia; the latter he created similarly for the interior of the new Temple to Athena Parthenos (the Parthenon) at Athens (c. 447–438 BCE). Both statues stood about forty feet tall; the “Virgin Athena” alone consisted of more than a ton of gold plating. That statue reveals the complexity of Phidias’ designs: Standing wrapped in her sacred gown, or peplos, she wore body armor about her chest and shoulders (depicting Medusa and snakes) and a helmet (depicting a sphinx and griffins); she held the goddess Nike (Winged Victory) in her right hand, while resting her left hand on a huge shield depicting Amazons on the outside and Giants on the inside. Even the sandals on her feet had carved reliefs of a battle against centaurs, while the base on which the statue stood also had a relief, illustrating the creation of Pandora, the first woman. Colossal statues like those by Phidias not only displayed the remarkable skill of the master sculptor and his studio but also the wealth of a Greek community and its devotion to a particular deity. Furthermore, such works captured key characteristics of the Classical perspective: the aloofness of the gods paired with their almost sage-like presence within human affairs. Influenced by Phidias, the sculptor Polykleitos of Argos created a chryselephantine Hera, equally colossal, for her temple at Argos (c. 420 BCE). Before that, he had already become equally famous for his bronze statues; none of his originals survive, but copies in stone by later artists reveal the mastery of symmetry for which he acquired such a reputation. He had written a treatise on the subject, which laid out his system (canoˉn) of proportional measurement; beginning with its fingers and toes, every part of a statue was to be related to every other by precise relative calculations. In addition, Polykleitos perfected the chiastic pose (or contrapposto, as it was known in the Renaissance), with which artists had been experimenting since the Classical Age began. His statues appeared to balance between stiffness and relaxation, parts static and parts in mid-movement. His best-known work, the Doryphoros (c. 440 BCE), for instance, stands on a stiffened right leg, while its left bends in anticipated motion; its right arm falls relaxed straight at its side, while its left arm bends forward to hold and perhaps cast a spear. Even the contemplative head of Doryphoros fulfills the canoˉn, cocked to the right instead of starring ahead.

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Doryphoros was the very image of a powerful, physically fit, young, male athlete, or hero perhaps, captured in a moment before action. Like other figures by Polykleitos, it embodied the values of Greek society in the Classical Age; the physical qualities of Doryphoros are those the ancient Greeks expected from and valued most in their men. Wherever this sculpture might have been displayed originally (perhaps in a gymnasium), it would have reminded viewers of those expectations and aspirations. The works of Polykleitos also embodied the mathematical perfection so beloved of many scientists and philosophers in his time period, who sought the perMarble statue of the Doryphoros, or Spear-Bearer, fect even in the human form. In one of many copies of a bronze original by addition, his sculptures encapsuPolykleitos, fifth century BCE. Polykleitos created lated the belief in moderation a widely accepted cano¯n, or standard, for the sculpting of lifelike human figures according to that permeated Greek culture, a system of proportional measurements (relating especially in the Classical Age: every body part to the dimensions of the fingers and Doryphoros appears ready for toes) and conveyed both a sense of relaxation and readiness (known as a chiastic or contrapposto pose) action yet self-controlled, loosin his statues. (DEA/G. Nimatallah/De Agostini/Getty ened up yet restrained. Images) Not surprisingly, then, Polykleitos set a standard imitated for the remainder of the Classical Age and beyond. Just one example, perhaps the most excellent one, is the Apollo Belvedere, a marble copy, the bronze original for which the Athenians commissioned from the sculptor Leochares (c. 350 BCE) to place in the agora. Such a placement, in the heart of the city, served not only to honor the god of civilization and the arts but also to symbolize the well-known Athenian dedication to the ideal of the perfect male in body and spirit. Although sculptors like Phidias and especially Polykleitos had broken their figures out of the “Archaic box,” other artists of the Classical Age sought much more movement from their creations, striving to bring them fully into a viewer’s

Arts: Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical

three-dimensional space. An unknown artist (Kalamis of Boeotia perhaps) created the so-called God of Artemision (c. 460–450 BCE), another survivor of ancient shipwreck. It illustrates this seeking after movement, as the statue thrusts one arm forward to balance itself as it throws a (now-missing) projectile with its other arm (pulled straight back in the opposite direction); one leg moves forward to hold the weight of the body in motion while the other begins to rise in anticipation of that motion. Another example comes from Myron of Eleutherae, who excelled in endowing his sculptures of gods, heroes, athletes, and animals with the appearance of arrested action; his bronze Diskobolos (c. 450 BCE), now known only in copies by others, became an instant sensation and model for artists (hence the copies): the discus-thrower has been captured in mid-swing, his muscles tensed and ready to release, every body part, arms, legs, torso, head, even toes, vital and active. Artists thus revolutionized what sculpture could achieve and satisfied a public hungry for monuments to honor their very active gods, heroes, and athletes. In the later fifth century BCE, Phidias, Polykleitos, and three others competed for the honor of creating a commemorative statue of an Amazon warrior for the famous Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the latter one of the Seven Wonders of the World; the city’s very name derived from an Amazon devoted to the goddess. Polykleitos’ wooden model for the figure won him the commission (thanks to the votes of his competitors, in fact), and his Wounded Amazon in bronze became a standard copied by many other sculptors (down to Sosikles in the second century CE). Such works followed the canoˉn of Polykleitos, keeping female figures within the confines of mathematical serenity and relative modesty; they were only partially nude, as would have been deemed fitting enough for “barbarian” women. Other sculptors, however, were not satisfied with this approach. When Paionios of Mende, for instance, received a commission from the Messenians and Naupactians to erect a monument in commemoration of a military victory to stand in the sanctuary of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, he created his famous Nike (c. 420 BCE); her now-lost wings stretched upward as she landed atop a thirty-foot pillar (also lost), her left breast and left leg as bare as her arms, her diaphanous clothing pressing back against the rest of her sensuous body. Paionios had created the first flamboyant, practically nude goddess in the history of Greek art, thereby revolutionizing the treatment of the female in sculpture. Nearly a century later, Praxiteles went further with the first completely nude female figure, the Aphrodite (c. 350 BCE), purchased by the city of Cnidus in honor of their patron goddess. The sculptor captured Aphrodite (perhaps modeled on his mistress, Phryne) just about to go bathing, positioning her right hand below her waist in a vain attempt to prevent the viewer from seeing everything. Up to that time, Greeks had only accepted statues of males presented fully nude; female statues of Greek women and goddesses, such as the chryselephantine images

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noted above, all had abundant clothing to cover them, just like real women of their society were expected to wear. Praxiteles shattered that artistic double standard, though obviously not the societal one. Still, many other sculptors developed their own copies of, and variants on, the Aphrodite of Cnidus for patrons across the Greek (and Roman) worlds. She had become the ideal of female beauty and physical perfection in Greek culture. Classical sculptures in the round explored the full physicality of the human form. Artists created anatomically detailed bodies in a variety of materials that moved more and more freely in space; they possessed grace and beauty, while also appearing natural and realistic, even in the range of mental states which they conveyed. In addition to gods and heroes, they began to capture the idealized images of the famous, living or only recently deceased, like the Athenian figures Pericles, Sophocles, and Themistocles, for instance. Moreover, one needs to recall that skilled painters (like Nicias of Athens who regularly collaborated with Praxiteles) carefully applied color to these statues, providing them with an even greater haunting realism. Yet most of all Classical statuary encapsulated Greek ideals of perfection, anatomical as well as geometrical. Driven by a desire to idealize the human form, Classical sculptors, and the painters with whom they worked, literally monumentalized the values of their society. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Metalworking; Family and Gender: Men; Mourning/Memorialization; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Housing and Communities: Acropolis; Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Beazley, J. D., and B. Ashmole. 1966. Greek Sculpture and Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bluemel, C. 1955. Greek Sculptors at Work. New York: Phaidon Press. Boardman, J., ed. 1993. The Oxford History of Classical Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carpenter, R. 1960. Greek Sculpture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Osborne, R. 1998. Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spivey, N. 2013. Greek Sculpture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Arts: Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical

SCULPTURE/RELIEFS, MOUNTED STATUARY, CLASSICAL Greeks of the Classical Age (c. 490–323 BCE) continued to endow their public buildings, especially their temples, with sculptural adornments, just as their predecessors in the Archaic Period (c. 800–c. 490 BCE) had done. In creating a variety of narrative scenes relevant to those structures, they employed the formal gestures and poses of religious ritual, as well as the masklike imagery and dramatic timing of the theater. Classical sculptors working in relief and mounting their statuary to walls, like those who carved freestanding statuary, also incorporated geometric harmonies as well as much attention to anatomical detail into their masterpieces. One can see the rapidity of changes in style and technique from the Archaic to the Classical just by looking at the artworks from a single structure. For instance, at the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, the remains of the pedimental sculptures on the east end differ dramatically from those on the west end. When complete, both illustrated battle scenes involving multiple figures, with Athena at the center of the action. On the west pediment, which dates to the tail end of the Archaic Period, the goddess stood stiff in her armor, gazing out at the viewer, while, on both sides of her, two groups of warriors were caught in very frozen battle poses. The whole ensemble presents a stately quality, and also a static one, as if the figures had been caught by a sudden camera shot. On the east pediment, which dates to perhaps only a decade later, the central figure of Athena herself was in motion, pushing with her energy all the battling warriors around her, creating waves of pushing and pulling positions among them; the figures are presented in greater anatomical detail than those of the west pediment and, more important, reveal fuller and truer-to-life emotional expressions (especially the resistance paired with suffering seen in the famous fallen warrior of the east pediment). Classical artists soon seem to have picked up on this instance of an old-­ fashioned pediment and a new-style pediment on the same building and turned it into a stylistic motif, deliberately archaizing their works. A good example comes from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Here, the east pedimental sculptures display the oath and other preparations for the legendary chariot race between the heroes Pelops and Oenomaus, presided over by the god Zeus. Meanwhile, the west pediment depicts the god Apollo apparently in the midst of a conflict between centaurs and human men, women, and children. As on the west pediment of the Aphaia temple, the east figures from Olympia maintain rigid poses and display a definite solemnity; the west figures at Olympia are animated like those from the east pediment of Aphaia’s temple, except that the artists have come to carefully illustrate many different contortions of the physical bodies and many different emotional states in the facial expressions of the various figures. On both sides of the Olympia

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Sculpted marble panel, or metope, depicting Heracles holding up the heavens in place of Atlas and with the help of Athena, from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, c. 460 BCE. The famous Labors of Heracles, punishments for his murdering of his wife Megara and their children in a fit of madness, seemed a fitting decoration for the exterior of the temple since Heracles, according to legend, had dedicated it to his divine father with the first Olympic games. Moreover, the example of Heracles overcoming such incredible challenges served as tremendous inspiration for the athletic contestants at Olympia. (Prisma/UIG/Getty Images)

temple, some of these expressions hearken back to the Archaic style, but they are now present alongside the very much more humanized faces of the Classical. Both pediments date to between 470 and 457 BCE, crafted under the direction of the chief architect Libon of Elis, who gathered artists from all over Greece (their many different “hands” evident in analyses of the figures) to create these complex scenes deliberately in which divine order and worldly chaos, symbolized by old style and new style, meet. The west pediment at Olympia also reveals another key characteristic of Classical relief sculpture: exploration of the contest between civilized and savage. Unlike the earlier periods in Greek sculpture, and art generally, during which Greek artists freely and frequently borrowed motifs from the Near East and Egypt, the Classical Age saw artists abandon such things, perhaps in response to the confrontations with the Persian Empire, perhaps as a means of distancing the Greek world further from the “barbarians” beyond. Greek artists of the period, and their patrons, became fascinated, almost obsessed, with this latter motif, as seen at Olympia in the crazed centaurs (the savage) attacking the seemingly calm humans (the civilized).

Arts: Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical

Like their Archaic predecessors, Classical sculptors created metopes (marble relief panels) to decorate the exteriors of temples (above the line of columns). The metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, for example, illustrate a widespread interest of Greeks in the time period, an interest in the different states of mind of human beings (in this case, the hero Heracles) as they struggle with challenges in their lives (in this case, his famous Labors); Heracles’ facial expressions display his inner character—who he truly was—as well as his suffering in the moment. The panels also follow him along the path of his lifetime, from an eager young man to a weary mature one; this, too, was of great interest to Classical Greeks, who had an obsession (as seen in their myths, plays, and philosophy) with the tensions between youth and old age, with how to cope with growing old in a culture that idealized being young. In a sense, the artists of the Temple of Zeus provided an answer to that puzzle in the model of a great hero’s sense of acceptance born from experience. The epitome of the Classical style in the fusion of sculpture and architecture is the Parthenon, the great temple to Athena on the Acropolis at Athens. Between 447 and 432 BCE, an army of sculptors from all over Greece carved over ninety metopes, nearly fifty pedimental figures, as well as a frieze over five hundred feet in length; one can only imagine the frenetic atmosphere of artistic observation, adaptation, competition, and cross-fertilization that went on in those years, high above the streets of the city, all under the direction of the master-sculptor Phidias. The repeated theme among the metopes—to be expected—is the cosmic conflict between civilization and barbarism, symbolized by gods versus giants (east metopes), Greeks versus Amazons (west), Greeks versus Trojans (north), and humans versus centaurs (south). Once again, some of the metopes depict more rigid, archaizing tendencies, while others appear state-of-the-art in technique. The remains of the pedimental sculptures of the Parthenon suggest the differences between one side of the temple and the other that we would expect, as illustrated in earlier Classical temples: the east pediment, which probably depicted the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus, exhibited greater calmness and more stately configurations of gods and goddesses, while the west pediment, which probably showed Athena and Poseidon competing over who would become the patron deity of Athens, exhibited much greater dynamism among the figures, like waves of exploding energy flowing through and among them. The Parthenon frieze decorated the upper portion of the outer wall on the temple’s inner chamber. It begins on the west side, the rear of the temple, with youthful horsemen, then runs in parallel fashion along the north and south sides with charioteers in armor, older men, musicians, bearers of ritual objects, sacrificial animals and their handlers; finally meeting up on the east side, bearded men and maidens carrying more ritual objects halt around a central rite, the presentation of the folded

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peplos, a sacred garment, to clothe the statue of Athena, with the Olympian gods themselves seated in attendance, just over the main entrance to the temple. Many hands created the frieze, as with the metopes and pediments, but the style across its length shows great consistency, presumably the stronger guidance of Phidias. Viewers would have gazed upon it from below, once they had passed through the exterior colonnade of the temple; to compensate for the dim lighting and the steep distance from vantage point to the reliefs, the artists carved the latter deeper near the top and shallower near the bottom. In addition, one needs to remember that skilled painters carefully applied color to this frieze, as they did to all metopes and pedimental statuary in those days, heightening the visual impact of the carved figures. The series of reliefs in the Parthenon frieze thus depicts a religious procession, whether a snapshot of gods and human heroes together in the past, or perhaps something closer in historical time and more down to earth. There are several hundred figures in all, in an amazing variety of poses and gestures, not to mention the animals and objects, all carved in intricate, yet delicate, detail. In true Classical fashion, the frieze renders the essentials of male and female, young and old, and human and divine. Yet no two figures are alike, no two faces or expressions or reactions the same. It tells a story by capturing a “moving picture” of an event, filled with tension, with energy and control, and yet somehow shadowy, almost like a sensory impression of the event. The Greek communities commissioned the great artists of the day to enhance the magnificence of their communal temples; in imitation, Greek citizens and their families commissioned the artists they could afford to create memorials for their beloved deceased. For instance, Greeks of the Classical Age no longer placed lifesize statues as grave markers, like their Archaic Period predecessors had done. Instead, they erected standing headstones carved with images in relief (ste¯lae), very much like the metopes on temples. Over time, from the middle of the fifth century BCE through the end of the fourth, artists expanded these images of the deceased to take up more and more of the carved space, often framing those portraits with architectural details imitating temple facades. Excellent examples are the ste¯lae of a woman named Hegeso (c. 400 BCE), of a young man (c. 340 BCE) called after its discovery in the Ilissos River, and of the soldier Aristonautes (c. 320 BCE). Together, they illustrate the range of traits in funereal sculpture from the period: calm serenity, elegance, contemplativeness, deep feeling, concentration, and dynamism. Some scenes are delicate in technique, others powerful; some figures seem entirely separate from our world, others appear to be rushing back into it. Thus, communal art had come to exert a profound influence on art that was much more intimate and close to people’s hearts.

Arts: Second Sophistic Movement

Driven by a desire to narrate events from myth or history or daily life, sculptors in the Classical Age created relief panels and mounted statuary that told such stories while also exploring deeper human psychology and emotions. One cannot underestimate the impact of their new style, which spread even beyond the Greek world; even a Lycian dynast working for the “dreaded” Persians commissioned for his tomb a small-scale imitation of the Parthenon (the so-called Nereid Monument of the early fourth century BCE), perhaps even employing retired artists from the Parthenon project to do so. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Family and Gender: Men; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Housing and Communities: Acropolis; Cemeteries; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Beazley, J. D., and B. Ashmole. 1966. Greek Sculpture and Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bluemel, C. 1955. Greek Sculptors at Work. New York: Phaidon Press. Boardman, J., ed. 1993. The Oxford History of Classical Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carpenter, R. 1960. Greek Sculpture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Haynes, D. E. L. 1965. An Historical Guide to the Sculptures of the Parthenon. London: British Museum. Jenkins, I. 2006. Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jenkins, I. 2007. The Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum. London: British Museum. Osborne, R. 1998. Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spivey, N. 2013. Greek Sculpture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SECOND SOPHISTIC MOVEMENT In the same way that Platonic philosophy experienced a revival and a renovation in the form of Neoplatonism, so, too, did the rhetorical traditions of the Classical Sophists in the form of the Second Sophistic of the first through third centuries CE.

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“New Sophists” under the Roman Emperors came to regard themselves as essential preservers of Greek culture and as purveyors of that culture to the Romans as leaders of the oikoumene¯, the “known world.” If we follow the account of Philostratus the Younger, who coined the term Second or New Sophistic, the movement seems to have begun especially with Nicetes of Smyrna, an expert in rhetorical and forensic techniques of oratory during the reigns of Nero and the Flavians. Known for his wit and inventiveness in developing new turns of phrase derived from the theatrical language of Classical Athenian drama (especially the plays of Euripides), he became famous for his work in the law courts and as a teacher of the oratorical arts. His similarly successful students included Scopelianus of Clazomenae, who also opened a flourishing rhetorical institute in Smyrna under the Flavians, Nerva, and Trajan. Scopelianus attracted pupils from all over western Asia Minor, as well as from the Peloponnesus and Athens, and even from as far away as the Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, thereby passing on the teachings and methods of his master across a very wide area. He added much good humor as well as evocative gestures to his speeches, attempting at once to relax his listeners and to convey to them an impression of the character of whomever he might be describing or defending. During a visit to Athens, Scopelianus became one of the teachers of Herodes Atticus (c. 101–c. 177 CE), who would himself go on to become one of the leading “New Sophists.” From an especially prominent Athenian family possessed of Roman citizenship, he ran his own important sophistic school in his hometown, attracting students from around the Aegean territories as well as Egypt, the Levant, and Rome, some of whom formed a dining club with him; he taught them poetry during their meals. The Emperor Hadrian appointed Herodes president of the Panhellenion, an institution with the mission of promoting Greek high culture, while the Emperor Antoninus Pius appointed him to tutor his adopted sons, the future Emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. In that capacity, Herodes also drew in other Romans to learn from him. Perhaps not surprisingly given his background, Herodes sought to instruct his students thoroughly in the models of style and vocabulary provided by what were considered the best works of Athenian literature. The favoritism of Hellenistic scholarship for all things Athenian had already formed a foundation for this “Atticism,” and Roman orators, especially Cicero, had played their part in its promotion within the Roman elite. Despite his own training under the “Asianist” (that is, in the flamboyant tradition of oratory from Greek Asia Minor) Scopelianus, Herodes began a quite deliberate imitation of the “pure” Attic style and imparted this to his pupils, especially Adrianus of Tyre, who came to hold the imperial chair in rhetoric at Athens and later at Rome and delivered the funeral oration for Herodes;

Arts: Second Sophistic Movement

Philostratus the Younger described Adrianus as “clothed in the style” of the Attic orators of old. On one of his visits to Asia Minor, Herodes met Polemo of Laodicea, a “New Sophist” about twenty years older than himself and from an equally distinguished family that had earned Roman citizenship. He had trained under Scopelianus and, like him, taught in Smyrna, thereby increasing its competitive edge as a center of high culture over its nearby rivals, Ephesus (capital of the Roman province of Asia, that is, western Anatolia, commercial hub, and a premier center of imperial cult) and Pergamum (a magnet for philosophers and artists since the second century BCE and experiencing a revival under the Emperors). Polemo greatly admired the eloquent Demosthenes of Athens (c. 385–322 BCE), which must have pleased Herodes, but he also infused his oratorical performances and teaching with lessons from Stoic philosophy, which he learned from Timocrates of Heracleia and especially from Dio Cocceianus of Prusa. Known as “Chrysostomos,” or “Golden-Mouthed,” Dio had studied all the Greek philosophies prominent in his youth (the second half of the first century CE), that is, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Platonism, training even under Roman experts. Dio’s direct, sober style in the manner of Demosthenes and Plato, infused and tempered by the wisdom of generations of the freethinkers that he studied, earned him a reputation straddling the realms of Atticizing rhetoric as well as philosophy. He taught both, and in many places (even among the “barbarian” Thracians), and composed speeches on mythical scenarios and real contemporary issues. Four of his best known orations, On Kingship, justify the reign of the Roman Emperors, particularly Trajan (to whom they are addressed), as the fulfillment of the ideal ruler so long proposed by the Greek philosophers. Dio’s style and philosophical-political ideas found their way into the career of Aelius Aristides of Mysia (c. 117–c. 180 CE), a “New Sophist” trained by Polemo and perhaps by Herodes. Having taught at Smyrna and Pergamum, his admired reputation for rhetorical purity (built upon close study and imitation of the poet Homer, the historians Thucydides, Polybius, and Herodotus, the orators Demosthenes and Isocrates, and the comic playwright Menander), endured for generations after his death. Although he composed mock polemics, diplomatic addresses, and declamations, today Aristides is probably best known for his oration To Rome, a marvelous panegyric to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, to his realm, and to Roman culture in general. A survey of the Second Sophistic would not be complete without a few words about the author through whom we learn so much about the major figures of the movement, Philostratus the Younger, also known as “the Athenian.” Born on the island of Lemnos, as a youth, he was inspired to pursue a rhetorical career by the example of Herodes Atticus, whom he praises to the skies in his Lives of the

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Sophists. Thanks to his own abilities and connections, Philostratus found himself eventually part of the intellectual circle gathered around the Empress Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus. Having taught in Athens, Rome, and Asia Minor, he went on to become a prolific author in a great variety of genres, from poetry to biography to orations, with a style that mixed Atticism and Asianism. A survey of the Second Sophistic would also not be complete without mentioning something about a major Greek literary figure, Lucian of Samosata (c. 170–192 CE), who certainly belonged to the movement, but is nowhere mentioned by Philostratus. Lucian devoted his rhetorical skills to satire and social commentary in the comedic and Cynic traditions. As a result, he often ridiculed the “New Sophists” and other intellectuals who seemed to him to have inflated egos, using his consummate skill in their own styles and methods against them. Perhaps that was why Philostratus left Lucian out of his book. Regarded as the leading educators of their times, “New Sophists” also achieved considerable social status and made valuable “career” connections. They served as local and imperial officials, envoys, and arbitrators; Herodes Atticus, for example, held many official posts in Athens and for Hadrian and Antoninus Pius elsewhere, while Polemo acted as ambassador for Smyrna to Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. They served as benefactors to their own and other communities; Herodes again comes to mind for his construction of an Odeon at Athens and at Corinth, his renovation of the stadia at Athens and at Delphi, his fountain house at Olympia, and his statues to honor Poseidon at Isthmia. Their generosity, public service, and oratorical reputations earned for the “New Sophists” honors of all sorts, such as seating privileges at public events, meals at public expense, commemorative statues, immunities from taxes, and special burials. Some became close friends and advisors of Emperors, like Polemo who traveled with Hadrian, or Adrianus who was close to Marcus Aurelius, or Dio Chrysostom who supported Nerva and Trajan. “New Sophists” also engaged in fiercely competitive rivalries among one another, as in the case of Heraclides of Lycia and Apollonius of Naucratis. Although both pupils of Adrianus of Tyre, the latter challenged the former to an oratorical contest which precipitated Heraclides’ ouster from his position as chair of rhetoric at Athens, forcing him to “flee” to Smyrna. The Second Sophistic, then, was populated by wide-ranging Greek intellectuals who consciously linked themselves to the “glorious” past of Greece by teaching and duplicating the styles and themes of authors they considered central to Hellenic identity. They spread their way of thought among Greeks and non-Greeks as resident and itinerant teachers, practicing their protégés in argument, comparison, panegyric, narration, and the use of exempla from the wise and the famous, as authors of poetry, philosophy, history, letters, speeches, even novels, and as lecturers in

Arts: Sophists

private mansions and to large audiences in civic halls, libraries, and theaters who came to hear their virtuoso performances on subjects ranging from the legendary to the historical to the topical. Although their movement petered out during the troubles of the Third Century Crisis (235–284 CE), it spawned a revival in the fourth century with figures like Libanius of Antioch, establishing the foundations for the oratorical, philosophical, and literary creations of the Byzantine Empire. See also: Arts: History; Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Rhetoric; Sophists; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters FURTHER READING Anderson, G. 1993. The Second Sophistic. London and New York: Routledge. Borg, B. E. 2004. Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Bowersock, G. W. 1969. Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Branham, R. B. 1989. Unruly Eloquence: Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goldhill, S., ed. 2001. Being Greek under Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, C. P. 1978. The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kennedy, G. 1972. The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Russell, D. A., ed. 1990. Antonine Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Swain, S. 1996. Hellenism and Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tobin, J. 1997. Herodes Attikos and the City of Athens. Amsterdam: Brill. Whitmarsh, T. 2005. The Second Sophistic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SILVER. See GOLD AND SILVER SKEPTICS. See PHILOSOPHY, SKEPTICS SOPHISTS In the Greek world, Sophists provided what we might call today “higher education.” Although the term “sophist” (which means “wise one”) might apply equally to musicians, poets, philosophers, or other skilled and intelligent people, it came to be attached to those teachers who claimed to possess knowledge on many subjects and wisdom about how to lead a successful and fulfilling life. Sophists remained a feature of Greek culture across a long period of time, even into the second and third

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centuries CE under the Roman Empire, but the most famous Sophists, and the most influential in the long term, lived in the fifth century BCE. The Sophistic “movement,” if we may call it that, seems to have begun early in the fifth century BCE in the Greek city of Syracuse, on the island of Sicily; experts there in the art of rhetoric claimed that they could teach excellent speaking and writing to anyone who studied with them and that anyone could mold the world to suit his own interests through the power of rhetoric. Pupils of these earliest Sophists, and their imitators, spread their methods of rhetorical analysis and instruction quickly throughout the Greek world, introducing themselves to new audiences by means of lectures and demonstrations (known as epideixis) to the general public, followed by private lessons especially to the wealthy. In time, Sophists came under the influence of some of the fundamental teachings of the sixth-century cosmologist Heraclitus of Ephesus; he had urged people to apply reason and logic to their understanding of human beings and the workings of human society. Indeed, Heraclitus had once lamented that most people “sleepwalk” through their lives, seldom examining themselves for true motives, seldom questioning the customs around them, seldom discovering the reasons for why things are the way they are, that is, ignoring the essential reality (logos to use the Greek term) behind the trappings of this world. Heraclitus’ emphasis on “waking up” to the realities of the world, both manmade realities and natural ones, inspired Sophists to add to their repertoire by mastering many other subjects in addition to the study of language, creating the sort of higher education for Greek society noted earlier; they promised to inculcate in their pupils a variety of skills that together would guarantee success in the human world. They proved the utility and benefits of their wide knowledge and skills in their writings and in private and public settings, whether religious festivals, social gatherings, funerals, or even impromptu question-and-answer sessions with everyday people on city streets. Further proof can be found in the reliance of Greek communities on Sophists for critical missions, such as when Leontini in Sicily dispatched its most prominent Sophist, Gorgias (c. 485–c. 380 BCE), as its diplomat to Athens to seek military aid in a war against Syracuse, or when the Athenian statesman Pericles appointed perhaps the most famous Sophist, Protagoras of Abdera (c. 490–c. 420 BCE), to establish a governmental system for the new Athenian colony of Thurii in southern Italy. Most Sophists found it expedient to travel widely in order to enhance their reputations as teachers and to gather enough students, especially affluent ones, to support their lifestyles. As they wandered among various communities, both Greek and non-Greek, they came to recognize the similarities and the differences among those communities. This led to broad knowledge and theories derived from experience and observation, and to several significant conclusions: first, that the

Arts: Sophists

Greeks had more in common with each other than they liked to admit; second, that they had more in common with the foreigners whom they condescendingly labeled “barbarians” than they cared to acknowledge; and third, that their differences, especially in terms of beliefs, customs, and rules, were all relative to place, circumstances, and tradition. In other words, realizing that all human beings operate according to what we might term “natural laws,” that is, the same basic motives and attitudes, whether rational or emotional, Sophists developed a cosmopolitan outlook on humanity, to replace the xenophobic one typical among the Greeks and the “foreigners.” As Democritus of Abdera, cosmologist and Sophist, once put it, “to the wise man, the whole world is open; the good person has the entire world for his polis.” In addition, Sophists developed distaste for the barriers that people had created to segregate one another within humanity, such as ethnic prejudices, religious fanaticism, blind obedience to authority figures, restrictions of family or tribal ties, even overly strict adherence to moral injunctions. Sophists regarded all these as merely human constructs (not the work of the gods, as so many believed) and thus temporary by nature and, furthermore, capable of complete revision and change through the application of new knowledge and persuasive rhetoric. To the Sophists, the very diversity of Greek and non-Greek societies and norms (nomoi, to use the Greek term) proved that very little in life had to be done a certain way; so, they came to see every human “standard” as susceptible to critique, debate, and modification. Nothing existed permanently in the human world, as Gorgias of Leontini would have said; it’s all just our perception, our illusion, sometimes even our delusion, created or destroyed by the power of speech. Human beings themselves are the masters of their own world and its destiny; as Protagoras of Abdera once put it, “man is the measure of all things, that exist, that they do, that do not, that they do not.” Humans create every “standard” by which they live and judge others; they can just as easily uncreate such things, if they so will. This line of thought led both Gorgias and Protagoras, and other Sophists, to teach that objective truth does not exist, that every so-called truth is, in fact, a controversial claim that needs to be tested, to be held up to scrutiny, debated and argued over by the people it concerns until they accept its validity or not (such as in the social agreements that constitute “good” laws and “lasting” customs). Since there is always more than one side to any argument, this meant that “truth” would always be in the eye of beholder, totally in human hands. One can understand why the approach of the Sophists could lead to a sort of personal relativism, on the one hand, where some might ignore all social conventions as “untrue” restrictions. On the other hand, the teaching of the Sophists also pointed to certain general principles about human nature that might shake the moral complacency of most Greek communities. The Athenian historian, Thucydides, expressed these best in

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his account of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta: “War teaches men to be violent” (that is, humans learn what tends to profit them or what can be expedient, even ruthlessness in empire building or struggling over power, against all one’s ideals); it is natural “to rule whatever one can”; humans believe what seems most obvious and never really know the truth (which breeds the development of hateful prejudices and labels in civil strife and warfare, where fanaticism literally changes the meaning of language and former moral standards). All things considered, it should not surprise us that the term “sophist” soon went from being a positive word to a pejorative one. The general public in most Greek communities regarded Sophists as subversive threats to tradition, to high morals, to religious devotion, to the status quo. Their focus on teaching young aristocrats, who paid well for such education, angered leaders of more democratic politics, as in Athens. On top of that, most Sophists did not teach in their own hometowns, or not for long, so they could always be labeled as foreigners, outsiders with strange ideas, targets for those who resented a changing, widening world. Little wonder, then, that when Protagoras publicly expressed his uncertainty about the existence of the gods, something difficult for anyone to be sure of, he said, because of the brevity of human life and the confusing nature of religious traditions, the Athenians found it easy and simple to banish him from their city-state, further ordering the burning of his many books, not only on religion, but also on politics, math, law, ethics, psychology, rhetoric, philosophy, and so on, in an attempt to silence his threatening questions. Yet Sophists like Protagoras were the freest thinkers in the Greek world, rugged individualists always pushing the envelope with their radical notions, aware of social and psychological forces beyond the limited sight of most people, aware of the human power to analyze and perhaps even overcome such forces in the promotion of any person’s self-worth, ethical maturity, and limitless potential; they respected the educated and those who sought to improve themselves; they sought practical knowledge with which to improve human society. Sophists were the original humanists, long before the Renaissance, the original “Enlightenment” thinkers long before the eighteenth century. Despite sometimes strong criticisms against the Sophists in the Greek world, they were quite important figures asking vital questions and teaching useful arguments, especially in the ever-changing world of fifth-century Athens, where most Sophists ended up at one time or another in their careers. In Athens, Sophists found themselves immersed in tensions between old and new ways, shifting senses of right and wrong in the law courts, the popular assembly, the governing councils, and the myriad committees that ran not just a city-state but an empire according to the judgments of everyday citizens. There and elsewhere in the world of the ancient Greeks, Sophists raised many problems with which human beings and human society must grapple,

Arts: Temple Architecture

problems that resonate through the themes and the rhetoric of Greek playwrights, philosophers, historians, and experts in many fields. See also: Arts: History; Philosophy, Platonic; Rhetoric; Second Sophistic Movement; Theater, Tragedy; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Democracies; Science and Technology: Cosmology; Education FURTHER READING Bowersock, G. W. 1969. Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guthrie, W. K. C. 1971. The Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hussey, E. 1972. The Presocratics. New York: Scribner’s Sons. Kennedy, G. 1963. The Art of Persuasion in Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kerferd, G. B. 1981. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rankin, H. D. 1983. Sophists, Socrates, and Cynics. London: Croom Helm. Sprague, R. K., ed. 1972. The Older Sophists. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Zanker, P. 1995. The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity. Translated by A. Shapiro. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

STOICS. See PHILOSOPHY, STOICS TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE In the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), the ancient Greeks began to construct temples like never before seen in their lands; their inspiration seems to have been a combination of the hearth rooms (called megaron) from the Bronze Age palaces of Greece and experience of the massive religious structures put up by the rulers of New Kingdom Egypt. During the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), Mycenaean Greeks incorporated sacred space inside their palace complexes; none of these interior sanctuaries resembled what we would expect from a “standard” Greek temple. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was during the Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE) following the collapse of Mycenaean civilization when the Greeks began to erect freestanding “houses of the gods,” simple rectangular or apsidal structures made of mudbrick and wood, with frontal porches supported by a pair of columns, and peaked or curved roofs covered with thatch. Two small clay models of such buildings, dating to the turn from the Dark Age into the Archaic Period and evidently intended as

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sacred offerings to Hera, have been discovered in excavations at temples in honor of that goddess at Argos and Perachora. In the seventh century BCE, Greek builders began to convert their temples into stone, typically utilizing whatever sort of building material was easy at hand, like limestone or various sorts of marble. Evidence of the tools and techniques used in quarrying, chiseling, and joining the stone reveals adoption and adaptation from Egyptian originals. In comparison with Egyptian temples, such as the gigantic edifices at Luxor and Karnak, Greek temples paled in size. Still, the Greeks had expanded the form of their temples to incorporate a more complex post-andlintel design relying on Egyptian mathematics and geometry, as well as distinctly Egyptian architectural features, such as rows of columns to hold up the ceiling and roof elements. The Greek temples may seem miniaturized next to their Egyptian counterparts, but they nonetheless follow the latter as role models. A Greek temple sat upon a foundation topped by three-layered stone platforms, which formed a set of steps all around the building. They retained the central locus of the temple as the enclosed, rectangular chamber, the naos (or cella, the more frequently used Latin term), containing the cult image of the god or goddess honored there. They also retained the frontal porch, only now its two columns were not built from timber beams but from multiple drums of stone stacked one atop the other and held together by large wooden dowels (as have been discovered in the columns of the Parthenon in Athens). In some instances, Greek architects replaced the wall at the entrance to the naos with two columns, which gave open access to a pronaos, a covered forecourt within the temple chamber proper, while in other instances, the back wall of that same sort of temple was replaced as well with two columns, creating a covered rear court. These styles received even more modification as especially the forecourts of numerous Greek temples were extended with four columns standing far out in front of the temple walls to create enclosed pronaos and porch areas. Eventually, Greeks came to prefer temples that had columns beyond and around the central chamber on all four sides, thus creating a colonnade. It became common practice to erect the exterior colonnade first, then to build the interior of the structure, and finally, of course, roof the entire thing over. Such colonnades could hold up wider, longer, and taller roofs and enclose more sacred space. Adding to the basic designs of their ancestors and elements they found in the sacred architecture of other cultures, especially their Egyptian trading partners, the Greeks of the Archaic Period thus created something particularly and memorably their own, the oldest style of their temple architecture, which we call Doric. In an Egyptian temple, the columns might have no capital (cap or top) at all, or simply a large, square block as a capital; in the Doric style, Greek artists did

Arts: Temple Architecture

not remain satisfied with this. Although nothing lay between any column base and the top step of the temple structure, and though they did retain the Egyptian sort of capital, the Greeks shrank its height to resemble a tabletop and joined it to another, saucer-shaped piece of stone between it and the top of the shaft. In later temple styles, called Ionic and Corinthian, artists carved the capitals in intricate ways, shaping the stone into scrolls or volutes, and even plant forms, especially acanthus (perhaps inspired by overgrowth on a Corinthian tomb observed by the sculptor Kallimachos), and sometimes animal shapes in the eastern territories of the Hellenistic world. As a counterpart to the capital, a plinth appeared between column and top step, and it might be further elaborated with an incised series of parallel rings just below the column base. By Roman times, Greek temple capitals, and even plinths, exploded in complex, exuberant designs. Once the columns were erected, Greek artists, instead of leaving their surfaces smooth or inscribing them with words or symbols, as Egyptians usually (though not always) did, consistently fluted the shafts, chiseling as many as two dozen rounded grooves into them from top to bottom on all sides; in Doric columns, the chiseling was more shallow, in Ionic and Corinthian, deeper, leaving more of a ridge between each fluting. In any case, fluting gave the columns an aesthetically pleasing extra sense of vertical thrust.

So-called Temple of Hera at Paestum in southern Italy, c. 450 BCE. At nearly two hundred feet long and eighty feet wide, this Doric-style structure is among the best preserved ancient Greek temples, with virtually intact entablature and pediments and clearly delineated vestibule, gallery, and naos. (Jeff Grabert/Dreamstime.com)

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In the overall construction of their sacred buildings, Greek architects aimed at simplicity, balance, and order (symmetria in their language) through mathematical precision. Thus, the grand Temple of Zeus at Olympia, constructed in the first half of the fifth century BCE, can be divided up into modules or parts corresponding to one another in ratios of 2:1. For instance, the interaxial measure (that is, the distance from the middle of one column to the middle of another column next to it) is half that of the height of the columns; the entablature (the lintel or horizontal beams laid across the tops of the columns along the temple’s four sides) is half as high as the interaxial measure. Yet, as their temples grew larger, the Greeks noted resultant optical distortions, especially when the buildings were viewed from a distance. To correct these distortions and create the optical illusion of perfect verticality, Greek masons in the early fifth century BCE curved the layers of temple bases (stylobates) slightly upward toward the middle (as on the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina) and carved the stone drums of their columns so that the entire shaft tapered toward the top and slightly bulged toward the bottom. In temple styles later than the Doric, such as the Ionic and Corinthian, column shafts were much less tapered, but optical distortion was compensated for by their greater height; while Doric columns generally stand four or five times as tall as the width of their bases, Ionic and Corinthian ones stand roughly eight times as tall as the width of their bases, giving them a more slender appearance and retaining the illusion of perfect verticality. The Doric temple to Athena Parthenos, known as the Parthenon, perhaps required the most painstaking and time-consuming processes to compensate for optical illusions. To create a wide enough structure for a new colossal image of the goddess, the architects of the Parthenon adapted the modules from the Temple of Zeus along the pattern of 2:1 plus 1; for instance, there would be eight columns along each of the shorter sides of the temple, seventeen columns (eight x two plus one) along each of the longer sides; the interaxial measure would be slightly more than twice the diameter of the columns, the overall height of the structure slightly twice that of the overall width, and so on. Following the model provided by the Temple to Aphaia, they curved the stylobate (nine units long by four units wide, again 2:1 plus 1) to preserve the illusion of a perfectly flat base, when seen from a distance. In addition to thickening the columns toward the base, as in other Doricstyle temples, they tilted the four corner columns just slightly on the diagonal and inclined all the other columns about two inches inward, again producing the illusion of perfect symmetry. Completed by slightly pitched timber roofs overlaid with tiles of terracotta, Greek temples, with all their complexity, presented an imposing image to residents and visitors of the ancient city-states. They might not have been as towering or as

Arts: Theater, Comedy

extensive as their predecessors in the lands of Egypt and the Near East, but they were, and remain, “little” marvels of engineering ingenuity and architectural skill. See also: Arts: Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Metalworking; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Religion and Beliefs: Olympian Gods; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Engineering; Geometry; Greek Language Groups; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Alcock, S., and R. Osborne. 1994. Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barletta, B. 2001. The Origins of the Greek Architectural Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gates, C. 2003. Ancient Cities. London and New York: Routledge. Hall, J. M. 2007. A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Jenkins, I. 2006. Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lawrence, A. W. 1957. Greek Architecture. Baltimore: Penguin. Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg, eds. 1995. Greek Sanctuaries. London and New York: Routledge. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pedley, J. 2005. Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

THEATER, COMEDY The ancient Greeks were always ready to poke fun at someone whom they resented or feared, in order to bring that someone down a notch or two, or to win back some sense of their own power or honor. Development of such humor into theatrical comedy was, consequently, not that hard to imagine. Furthermore, comedy became one of the most enduring elements of Greek culture over the generations. Theatrical comedy among the Greeks found its precursors in the humor of their earliest poets, both epic and lyric. Even the great Homer, within his serious stories of war and wandering, constructed scenes of laughter and mockery; one need think only of the characterization and treatment of Thersites by the heroes of the Iliad or the frequent jests of the suitors toward young Telemachus, his servants,

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and even Odysseus himself upon his return (while disguised as an old man) in the Odyssey. Lyric poetry, whether the drinking songs composed by Bacchylides of Ceos or the biting satirical jibes penned by Hipponax of Ephesus, also contributed to the themes and style of later comedy. In either epic or lyric poetry, such humor not only provided what we would call comedy relief, a lightening of the mood of the otherwise typically somber verse, but also pointed the listener’s attention at key complaints or criticisms about human nature and aspects of human society. Poetic humor could trap and condemn even more effectively than the most skillful rhetoric. The oldest evidence of comedic plays comes from Greek Sicily around 500 BCE in the extant fragments of works by a man named Epicharmus, probably of Syracuse. His plays seem to have turned the serious tales of Greek myth into parodies, again probably not just for humorous effect but also for teaching life lessons; Epicharmus developed a reputation for the wisdom of his proverbial sayings. Not much later, the Athenian government began to stage comedies as part of its festivals (especially the City Dionysia and the Lenaia) in honor of the god Dionysus; he, too, had a reputation for imparting the truths of life in the midst of mockery. By the middle of the fifth century BCE, Athenian audiences could attend at least ten such plays each year, written by terrific playwrights and funded by the government. Over the generations, three styles of comedy, Old, Middle, and New, developed among the Greeks, primarily at Athens. The surviving examples of Old Comedy are best demonstrated in the productions by Aristophanes of Athens (d. c. 386 BCE). The Athenian people awarded prizes to the top creators in the comedic genre; Aristophanes won first prize about six times, second prize three times, and third prize once, the greatest career success of any comedic playwright. His stories reveal the typical traits of Old Comedy. Actors dressed in outrageous costumes, often sexually suggestive, and engaged in loud, rowdy, rather uninhibited slapstick satirizing of contemporary celebrities (politicians, intellectuals, generals) and serious issues (warfare, peace, wealth, family values, death). The setting might be the city of Athens itself or a parallel world, couched as a wonderland inhabited by talking wasps, frogs, birds, and so on. Inevitably, certain characters in Old Comedy pursued selfish gains, while the large chorus of singers might represent the interests of the wider community attempting to check such pursuits. In most examples of Old Comedy, old-fashioned values are favored over new ways of doing things, suggesting a basic conservatism in the comedic genre, a conservatism that has its roots in the humor and satire of earlier poetry. It seems as though Old Comedy served to examine and critique contemporary changes in society with the intention of laughing them out of acceptance; comedy was, then, not a vehicle for celebrating changes and ultimately condemning those who opposed

Arts: Theater, Comedy

change, but quite the opposite: it was most often a means of lambasting change and those who favored or profited from it. At the very least, at its most generous, Old Comedy pointed out the folly of change by revealing that old ways and new ways were equally flawed, that “change” really did not lead to significant improvement. Old Comedy underwent a transition into Middle Comedy in the early fourth century BCE, to which Aristophanes himself contributed, until superseded by the full-fledged New Comedy of the late fourth century and beyond. New Comedy consisted of humorous plots focused on family dynamics, such as competing parenting styles, romantic relationships, especially the star-crossed lovers, and class tensions, as between slaves and masters; in other words, the focus shifted a great deal from the life of the whole community, represented in the form of prominent individuals and contemporary headlines, to the life of the home. The characters of New Comedy became set in rather standard forms, stereotypes that everyone in the audience could recognize: fathers were either too stern or too foolish; young women were either chaste or loose; athletes were always thick-headed, soldiers always too high on themselves, slaves always more clever than their superiors. Like our modern sitcoms, dialogue was witty, quick, and biting; like our modern soap operas, relationships were always ridiculously complicated and scenarios overly romantic. With all the changes, New Comedy playwrights, like Menander of Athens (d. c. 291 BCE), did still explore big issues of the wider community, like the persistence of poverty and unfair disparities of wealth, or the cultural tensions between those who lived in “sophisticated” cities and those who lived in the “backwater” countryside. Yet the overall impressiveness of the genre was not the same; Old Comedy had been peculiar to the Athenian body politic, part of the wide-scale public debate and discussion on matters of significance to that community. Writing Old Comedy was a serious business, one that could land a playwright in hot water in Athenian society, even legal prosecution, as Aristophanes found out not once but twice; on the other hand, it could also gain for its creator communal recognition and praise, again as Aristophanes personally discovered. The writers of New Comedy did not typically have such worries or such expectations. After all, to grasp New Comedy no longer did one need to be a resident of Athens; audiences from anywhere in the Greek world could more easily relate to the universal characters and situations presented on stage. No wonder, then, that New Comedy became “global” in a Greek sense, gaining popularity throughout the Hellenistic territories and beyond, especially among the Romans. See also: Arts: Dance; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Slavery, ­Private; Slavery, Public; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Family and Gender: Friendship

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and Love; Homosexuality; Marriage; Men; Sexuality; Women; Housing and Community: Country Life; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Public Officials; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Horse Racing; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Education FURTHER READING Bieber, M. 1961. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bowra, C. M. 1961. Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcman to Simonides. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press. Dover, K. J. 1972. Aristophanic Comedy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ehrenberg, V. 1962. The People of Aristophanes. New York: Schocken Books. Goldhill, S., and R. Osborne, eds. 1999. Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harvey, D., and J. Wilkins, eds. 2000. The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales. Ley, G. 1991. A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MacDowell, D. M. 1995. Aristophanes and Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sommerstein, A. H. 2009. Talking about Laughter and Other Studies in Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

THEATER, TRAGEDY Although several Greek communities laid claim to being the first to stage tragic dramas, among them Corinth and Sicyon in the Peloponnese, Athens is usually credited with that honor. According to Athenian tradition, in the late sixth century BCE, a man named Thespis introduced theatrical productions into the Great or City Dionysia, the most important of the four annual festivals in Athens dedicated to the god Dionysus. Thespis separated one singer from the choral performances typical of the festival and assigned to him a speaking role, or perhaps a combination of speaking and singing, thus introducing the first tragic actor. Whether truth or fiction, the story of Thespis, as related in various ancient and medieval Greek sources, strongly indicates the plausible evolution of tragic drama out of the choruses so essential to the Dionysian celebration. Certainly by the year 499 BCE, when the playwright Aeschylus staged his first play in Athens, tragedy had become firmly established in the repertoire of the

Arts: Theater, Tragedy

City Dionysia. Audiences expected the actor (or actors by the time of Aeschylus) and the chorus to engage in a sort of interplay with one another throughout the unfolding drama. The chorus typically expressed the views, desires, and needs of the community. In this, one can still recognize the continuity between the tragic chorus and those Dionysian choruses of men and boys out of which it emerged; in singing their hymns during the festival, those choruses of singers still, as always, represented the community before the gods. The tragic actor(s) expressed views, desires, and needs that might have been culturally instilled, but that, more important, represented an individualized perspective, a challenge to the community, to the group’s identity, in favor of one person’s purpose or goals. That was where Athenian tragic drama got its power and timeless resonance: tragic playwrights understood and explored the mechanism through which society learns about itself and evolves beyond itself—the confrontation between society and its individual members, even the confrontation within each individual, who is himself or herself the very embodiment of society. The eponymous archon of Athens held the responsibility of supervising this exploration of cultural tradition and change; in many ancient cultures, the Greek among them, freedom of expression found itself limited and channeled by officials charged with caring for public morals and mores. In this case, the archon established parameters by selecting the nine tragic plays, three each from three separate playwrights, to be staged over the course of three days during the Dionysian festival. Funding came from wealthy citizens (chore¯goi), also selected by the eponymous archon; these citizens fulfilled their tax obligation to the state through this liturgy or service to the community. Once again, this reminds us that the Athenians regarded their theatrical dramas not primarily as a form of entertainment but as a form of worship and of introspection among the “god’s people.” This also makes it easier to understand why the price of admission for a full day of play-watching was either incredibly low (equivalent to the price of one drink) or completely free (the bill footed by the state); the Athenians, and especially the cast and crew of a play, were not trying to make money off it, but to investigate issues of consequence to themselves and the gods who watched over them. It was serious, not business. And this was further emphasized by the outcome of the competition among the plays; at the end of the festival, a panel of five judges, selected in a manner similar to the selection of representatives for the Athenian legislature, assessed each play and determined which three should receive top awards of money and public recognition (through token prizes and commemorative inscriptions). The money did not amount to much, as far as we know, but the public recognition indicated for present and future generations that the playwright, his actors, chorus, and even chore¯gos, had told a story that the Athenian people, through its representative judges, considered worthy of their community.

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Tragedies possessed a socially conservative flavor to them; they all seemed to start from the premise that a strong-willed individual, through some stubborn, reckless, or selfish choice, had set in motion a chain of events that would inevitably and inexorably produce disastrous consequences for the protagonist himself or herself, for their loved ones, for their community. This tied the thread of a tragic tale back to the myriad proverbs and myths of olden times, the grist for the playwright’s mill, to which Greeks had always subscribed: had not Greeks always believed that there were limits that human beings should not transgress? Hybris, the crossing of such parameters, would lead to nemesis, divine retribution or payback; that was guaranteed. Yet the secret of tragedy, again, was in its ability to explore the reasons and causes for such tragic choices, and their implications, to remind audiences of the human struggle involved in always doing the right thing, rather than simply condemning those choices as foolish, wrong or evil. Audiences sat in the theater for hours viewing these plays, knowing what the outcome must be in most cases, since the plays drew upon established mythology; they waited to see how the playwright and his performers would tell the tragic tale, how they would relate to the different characters, whether or not they would agree with the sentence of established custom or rebel against it. Playwrights utilized every trick available to them, elaborate costuming and gigantic facial masks, choreographed dance and emotional music, eye-catching scenery and special effects, mind-gripping rhetoric, poetry, and philosophy, to bring the audience into the realities of the stories they told, the complexities of living in this world. Tragedy was, thus, the farthest thing from escapism; quite the opposite, it was about bringing home to one’s fellow citizens the challenges that each and every one of them faced, as did their ancestors, as would their descendants. The acknowledged greats of the tragic stage lived during the fifth century BCE, the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and each contributed their own distinctive elements to the genre. Aeschylus, for instance, seems to have been obsessed with the divine mechanics of the world; Sophocles emphasized the development of character as displayed through scenes of contest between main and minor characters; and Euripides centralized the theme of pathos, suffering emotion. Unfortunately for the very goals of tragedy, the popularity and power of these famous fifth-century productions stifled further creativity instead of energizing it. Traveling companies known as Dionysian artists crisscrossed the Greek world to stage revivals of the plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides already in the early fourth century; as other Greek communities began to regularly experience such productions, they typically did not develop any of their own, and tragedy as an art form ossified.

Arts: Theater, Tragedy

See also: Arts: Dance; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Family and Gender: Friendship and Love; Inheritance; Marriage; Men; Women; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Justice and Punishment; Monarchies; Public Officials; Tyrannies; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Education FURTHER READING Bieber, M. 1961. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Csapo, E., and W. J. Slater. 1994. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Easterling, P. E., ed. 1997. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goldhill, S., and R. Osborne. eds. 1999. Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ley, G. 1991. A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lucas, D. W. 1959. The Greek Tragic Poets. 2nd ed. London: Cohen and West. Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. 1968. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. 2nd ed. Revised by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

TRAGEDY. See THEATER, TRAGEDY

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INTRODUCTION The ancient Greek poet Hesiod (eighth century BCE) once remarked that the gods kept for themselves the means of living easily, while human beings were left to toil with mules and oxen and ships to acquire what they needed to live. Certainly, the ancient Greeks did not value work intrinsically as did, for instance, seventeenthcentury Puritans; they more often regarded laboring as a necessary evil. Yet, like those Protestants so many centuries later, the ancient Greeks did consider work as what the gods intended for humanity and as essential in the proper worshipping of the divine. The Greeks likely brought many of their work-related skills with them out of the mists of their prehistory, but they also certainly adopted many others from the older cultures with whom they interacted in historic time. They adapted all these talents to the resources of the Aegean/Mediterranean environment and the needs of their own communities. In the process, the Greeks developed one of the most diversified economies of ancient times (economy being derived from Greek oikoumene¯, meaning “the inhabited world”) with enough wealth and enough societal demand to generate employment not only in basics, like agriculture, metal-refining, and trade, but also in economic advancements, like banking, fine currency, and standards, as well as cultural enhancements, like acting, speechwriting, and travel. Although later generations have tended to give more attention to the political, military, artistic, and intellectual leaders of the ancient Greek world, that world would not have functioned at all without the free citizens and resident aliens, freedmen and slaves, engaged in a wide array of occupations. Such persons, where they have left their unique marks in the historical record, felt pride in their work and clearly understood its contribution to the flourishing of ancient Greek culture.

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ACTORS Actors served an important function in the culture of ancient Greek society. Although not always respected for what they did, they nonetheless brought to life the characters and the themes that deeply resonated with thousands of Greeks over centuries of time. Classical theater, whether tragic or comedic, engaged the services of at first one, then two, and finally three actors per play, in tandem with the chorus of singerdancers and various nonspeaking extras. A set of actors performed all the parts in a play and the same set of actors likely played all the parts in the series of plays put on by a single playwright during whichever festival in which they were participating. In Roman times, the solo actor returned as the norm for tragedies, though comedies seem to have retained a multiplicity of performers. Greek actors were masters of voice and gesture, similar to modern-day opera singers. They performed in costume. In tragic plays, they wore gigantic masks designed to portray particular characters and clothing to match those roles. In Old Comedies (mainly fifth century BCE), they also used masks, but they especially wore sexually suggestive outfits, heavily padded in the stomach and the backside, underneath stereotypical clothing for their role; in New Comedy (fourth century BCE and later), this changed to everyday clothing and a greater range of masks was employed. In the theater of Classical Athens (490–323 BCE), the prototype for almost all others across the Greek world, male citizens of good standing performed the roles created by playwrights, who themselves were male citizens of good standing. Indeed, it was said that some playwrights, like Sophocles, acted as well. Acting for these men was not a profession, but rather a form of creative service for the community. It was their vocation, too. They did not earn their living from acting and they did not devote all their time to acting; Sophocles, for instance, served as a commander, treasurer, and emergency commissioner for Athens. Already in the fourth century BCE, and especially from the third century BCE onward, actors began to join together in associations known as the “skilled ones” (technitai) of Dionysus. They traveled from place to place, organizing dramatic events and staging the famous tragedies and comedies of the Athenian theater, which were revived and duplicated across the Hellenistic world in parallel religious festivals; they also performed smaller scale versions or adaptations at private events and parties. Although musicians and poets, many of whom had always been professionals, joined these associations as well, the Dionysiac artists were primarily professional actors. Not the amateur citizen performers of the old religious festivals, they were dedicated to their craft as a means of making a living. Dionysiac artists developed specialized talents and were known for particular characters they played or particular styles of performance. They sought prize

Economics and Work: Actors

money, connections, and fame from their work. Many came from lower social levels than their illustrious predecessors of the Classical Age (that is, from what we might term “middle classes”); certainly by Roman times, an increasing number were likely freedmen or even slaves. Across time periods, acting and playwriting, like music, tended to run in families, usually with fathers passing the vocation, whether amateur or professional, on to their sons and typically not even crossing over into other genres. For instance, there were three generations of a family of comic actors in Athens, each named Callippus. There was the comic poet Panaitius and his son Antiphanes the comic actor or Terracotta statuette of a comic actor from an ancient grave in Attica, late fifth to early fourth century BCE. the comic poet Philip and his son Acting had become an essential feature not only of Aristophanes the comic actor. Athenian but also of Greek society in general by that There was Hiero the tragic play- time, and its elements, like the masks and costuming identifying stock characters, could be found in wright and his son Arcesilaus the artistic depictions across the Greek world and tragic actor. The best family trees beyond, wherever Greek influence was felt. (The of them all appear to have been Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1913) those of Aeschylus, the renowned tragedian, whose sons Euphorion and Euaeon also became tragic playwrights, and whose sister’s grandson, Melanthius, did so as well, and of the greatest comic playwright, Aristophanes, whose eldest son Ararus was a comic actor and playwright, and whose younger sons, Philippus and Nicostratus, were also comic playwrights. The major Dionysiac associations were based in Argos and Thebes (for performances at the Isthmian and Nemean festivals), in Athens (for the City Dionysia and other religious celebrations), in Teos (for performances in the region of the Hellespont and Ionia), and in Alexandria. Like any other guilds, they sought to look after the needs of their members. So, many associations of actors and other performers acquired special legal privileges in particular communities, such as asylia (security of personal property) or ateleia (tax exemption), and even royal

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patronage in Hellenistic Egypt and elsewhere. They operated like city-states, holding assemblies, selecting officers, sending out envoys, but also as religious associations (thiasoi) and thus maintained sacred spaces in honor of Dionysus, the patron god of the theater. Eventually, the reigns of the Roman emperors from Claudius to Diocletian witnessed the “union” of the separate associations of Dionysiac artists merging into one across the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, the formal theater had spawned a more popular version in the mimus, or mime. Again, traveling groups of actors, usually three or four, including eventually actresses as well, performed skits drawn from everyday experiences but also with a heavy dose of influence from the stage comedies. Mimologoi wore no masks, though, and dressed in everyday costuming. Other mime actors, known as mimoˉdoi, dressed in long white garments and wore golden crowns, in imitation of the serious tragedians, and performed melodies parodying the famous tragic plays. From at least the middle of the sixth century BCE, a market existed for vase paintings depicting actors and, from the late fifth century BCE at least, even small statuettes of them in their roles. Painted scenes from southern Italy and Sicily are perhaps the best examples of this art, such as the well-known Pronomos Vase (dated c. 400 BCE), which depicts a full set of named stage performers and their producer, as well as the god Dionysus and his love Ariadne. The existence of such artworks across the Greek world, along with literary evidence, testifies to the significant part played by actors in the cultural life of the Greek communities. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Family and Gender: Women; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Entertainers, Popular; Festivals; Leisure Activities; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Asylum FURTHER READING Bieber, M. 1961. The History of Greek and Roman Theater. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Prince­ ton University Press. Csapo, E., and W. J. Slater, eds. 1995. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Easterling, P., and E. Hall, eds. 2002. Greek and Roman Actors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Green, J. R. 1994. Theatre and Greek Society. London and New York: Routledge. Kowalzig, B. 2007. Singing for the Gods: Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nicoll, A. 1963. Masks, Mimes and Miracles: Studies in the Popular Theatre. New York: Cooper Square Publishers. Sifakis, G. M. 1967. Studies in the History of Hellenistic Drama. London: Athlone. Webster, T. B. L. 1970. Greek Theatre Production. 2nd ed. London: Methuen.

Economics and Work: Agriculture

AGRICULTURE The ancient Greeks always struggled when it came to producing enough food for themselves through agriculture. After all, only about one-quarter of the surface area in the Aegean basin was arable land in ancient times, the largely mountainous terrain being unsuitable for farming. In addition, the temperate Mediterranean climate, so praised by today’s tourists, to the ancient Greeks meant a long dry season (from roughly June through September), becoming relentlessly hot in the summer months, followed by a long period (roughly October through May) of uneven rainfall across the Aegean region. River valleys did break up the terrain, especially on the mainland, but they were relatively small; the water supply for Greek farmers was precarious and irrigation a challenge. As a consequence, the ancient Greeks had to nurture crops that would survive and flourish under such conditions. Greek agriculture therefore emphasized three staple crops: grains, olives, and grapes. Some Greek communities had better farming environments to work with than others, primarily because they fought wars for the best farm land. The Spartans top that list. Generations of persistent warfare gained them not only the rich alluvial plain of Laconia but also the even more sizable, and more fertile, alluvial plain of Messene, which the Spartan men distributed equally among themselves, forcing the captive Messenians to farm it for their new masters. Other excellent alluvial plains in southern Greece belonged to the people of Elis, Argos, Corinth, and Megara, in central Greece, to the various communities of Boeotia, Aetolia, and Acarnania, and, in northern Greece, to Thessaly; the especially rich, fertile soil of Thessaly’s large plains, as well as the milder, and damper, climate, permitted agricultural surplus unlike any other part of Greece. Again, these places all figure largely in the military history of the Greek world, not surprisingly, because of competition over arable land and access to water sources. Still other Greek communities were not as fortunate, the famous city-state of Athens among them. The Athenians controlled Attica, one of the largest territories in all of Greece, but the majority of that peninsula consisted of dry coastal and inland plains that possessed minimal topsoil and minimal water; there were also swampy lowlands not good for much of anything, except perhaps the growing of wild fennel (marathon in Greek, hence the name of the race from there). Yet Attica did possess a number of mountain peaks, and the upland valleys between and among them were fertile places for farming. Agriculture in Attica may have been difficult, and plagued by very dry and barren summer months, but some places in the Greek world fared even worse. On one extreme, a number of Greek islands—like the two hundred or so that form the archipelago known as the Cyclades—had even drier climates than Athens and less arable land; the barren and waterless island of Delos comes to mind. On the

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other extreme, the rugged territory of Epirus in northwestern Greece lay at such high altitude and experienced such heavy rains that little of the traditional Greek agriculture could flourish there. Long, mild winters and long, dry summers across most of the Aegean world allowed perfect germination for cereals, especially barley, and ideal growing conditions for olive trees. The introduction of these staple crops to the region happened long before the Greeks arrived on the scene, and they seem to have simply sustained the traditional agricultural methods handed down to them from the far past (as far as archaeological samplings can tell us), perhaps adding tree-grafting to the repertoire. Ancient Greek farmers, going back to the Bronze Age, grew both wheat and barley as their major grain crops, but much more barley; it thrived in the relatively dry conditions practically anywhere across the Aegean region, handling better the bad times without rain and with too much heat. Indeed, barley ripened faster than wheat and did not exhaust the soil in which it grew, as wheat did. Wheat, however, being more resistant to cold and more amenable to rain, served better in parts of the Greek world where such climate prevailed. Without sufficient evidence, scholars can only estimate the seed-to-yield ratio of these crops in different parts of Greece at between three times and ten times the amount of seed planted. Greek farmers used simple wooden plows with iron-tipped plowshares; those who could not afford this “luxury” plowed with stick, spade, or hoe. To prepare the land for their barley or wheat crop in thin-soiled areas of the Aegean region, like Attica, they plowed in the fall after the first good rains; in areas with heavier, moister soil, like Thessaly, they might plow also during the summer, since the heat would crack the ground making it easier to break up further through plowing. Sowing by hand took place when the autumn rains began, in October in most places, but in some, farmers had to wait until mid-December. The Greeks practiced weeding as well as hoeing of farmland as necessary to protect and encourage the growth of their crops; constant working of the soil pulverized it, allowing it to retain more moisture. The grain harvest came in May or June; at that time, they would not only cut down the crop with sickles, but also collect and dry the straw from the fallen plants (for various uses, including animal fodder) and have their draught animals (usually a pair of oxen), thresh the ears of grain, treading the kernels loose under their hooves. Sometimes, they would wait to do this until July, when they would use several winnowing tools to separate the grain from the chaff, and then place the grain in storage. Also after the springtime harvest, farmers would plow to prevent wild grasses and weeds from seeding and to keep farmland clean; these unwanted plants provided a sort of natural mulching for the soil, which the Greeks supplemented with some use of animal manure. Most farmers could just afford to allow

Economics and Work: Agriculture

the farmland to then lie fallow in the next year as a means of recharging its fertility, and some farmers employed simple methods of crop rotation within or among their fields. Olive trees are hearty and very long-lived, if properly tended, but they require about twenty years before they come to full fruiting potential, which made them one of the most important investments for ancient Greek farmers. Olive trees thrive even in very poor soils, which meant that the Greeks could plant them on marginal land and hillsides not fit for raising grains. Also, ancient farmers realized that almost any piece of an olive tree could take root when planted and that grafting olive stems was typically successful. Olive trees would not survive, or at least not produce fruit, in the higher elevations, where temperatures could drop too low, but they were quite resistant to higher temperatures, and quite fond of sunshine. Some communities apparently realized the importance of irrigation to their olive trees, but most did not possess the resources, even the sufficient water supplies, to invest in irrigation projects; this meant that most olive trees were dry-farmed in the Greek world. In order to help the trees (which already possess a leaf and root structure ideally designed to capture as much moisture as possible from the environment) conserve their moisture even further in the dry conditions afflicting parts of Greece, Greek farmers pruned them shorter than what farmers would do today. Olive trees would produce good fruit every other year, the harvest (a major event in all Greek communities) coming in the fall (especially September), the olives processed for eating or pressed for oil in November or December. Farming crops, planting olive orchards, and other forms of agriculture in the Greek world were primarily the business of small-scale, family farmers, their typical properties ranging from perhaps twelve acres (five hectares or fifty-five to sixty plethra in Greek terms) to perhaps twenty-four acres (ten hectares) of land. By contrast, full Spartan citizens owned anywhere from forty-four acres (eighteen hectares) to one hundred-eight acres (forty-four hectares), enormous farms by Greek standards, and often contiguous property. Of course, like their counterparts in regions of northern Greece, Spartan landowners had plenty of slaves to work such large landholdings. In Attica, many wealthy men invested in farmland, not usually contiguous but instead scattered around the peninsula, to the tune of as much as fifty acres (twenty hectares); they might rent some to tenant farmers, hire regular or seasonal laborers (from the metics, resident aliens, or the¯tes, poorest Athenians) to work it, or buy slaves to do so. The typical Greek farmer might have enjoyed the “luxury” of one or two slaves to help out the family as seasonal laborers, but they were likely not worth owning on a permanent basis. Rather, everyone in the family needed to contribute his or her labor to keep the farm going. While the men of the family plowed and planted in the fields and orchards, the women assisted with the tending and the harvest,

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and grew kitchen gardens of the vegetables and fruits that supplemented the staple crops; a daughter’s labor might have been lost in her early teens, when she married into another family, but a son’s might last forever, since sons inherited a family’s farmland. Even when married, at least one of a family’s sons would live with and care for the old farmer father and mother. Like their wealthy counterparts, family farmers attempted to compensate for low yields and unforeseen disasters through diversification. They had even more reason for doing so, however, since the rarity of surpluses meant the very real danger of starvation. Those who could afford it raised livestock as well as crops; most simply diversified the types of crops they grew, including lentils, beans, figs, and grapes, along with olives and grains. Attica is a good case in point here because its very topography and climate encouraged mixed farming; Athenian farmers planted their grain crops amidst their olive trees, for instance, and many engaged in beekeeping as a supplement to farming. The separate and overlapping labor cycles of mixed farming meant even more had to be done across the year by the members of the family farm or by the laborers on larger properties. Agriculture in the Greek world thus involved the hardest work during a limited portion of the year, long seasons of harvest, and lots of tending otherwise. Through limited experimentation with varieties of crops and methods of farming, the Greeks developed farming traditions that allowed generations of their people to survive and prosper. The importance of that success in agriculture, no matter how precarious at times, cannot be underestimated, since it served as the foundation for much of Greek culture. See also: Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry; Landownership; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Legumes; Olives and Olive Oil; Vegetables; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Zoology; Primary Documents: Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE); Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown) FURTHER READING Burford, A. 1993. Land and Labor in the Greek World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cartledge, P., E. E. Cohen, and L. Foxhall, eds. 2002. Money, Labour, and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Foxhall, L. 2007. Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Sallares, R. 1991. Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY The oldest of their tales, like Homer’s Odyssey and Hesiod’s Works and Days, emphasize the centrality of raising animals in the culture and economy of the ancient Greeks; Hesiod presents himself, in fact, as nothing more than a poor shepherd with a divine gift for poetry. As with agriculture, the origins of animal husbandry in the Aegean world go back to a time long before these authors of the eighth century BCE, indeed back as far as 5000 BCE, well before the Greeks even settled the Aegean region. The largely mountainous terrain meant great diversity of microclimates suitable for grazing livestock, from lush meadows to wide plains, from scrub land to forests. As a result, the type of animal husbandry practiced by the ancient Greek communities differed depending on the terrain under their control. Ancient Greece was not like the American “Old West”; the nature of the environment and the needs of communities prevented the creation of livestock ranches in many Greek territories and made diversification rather than specialization the norm. Greeks needed to exercise great care in terms of when they grazed their animals and how much grazing they permitted. They raised especially sheep, goats, and pigs, the first mainly for wool and meat, the second for milk and cheese, the third for meat (especially at sacrifices). To do so, ancient Greeks engaged in various forms of transhumance pasturage; that is, they moved the livestock across diverse terrain (if possible, in lowlands during colder months and in uplands during warmer months) so that the animals would feed themselves off the grasses, nuts, and roots found in the wild and make use of scrub lands to minimize costs. If they could afford it, stock raisers supplemented the diet of their animals with cereals, olives, and other farm crops left over from harvests. They might also give their animals large quantities of salt when available to help them increase weight and retention of water in the hot summer months. To augment stock raising, many Greeks raised various species of fowl, especially chickens, again under free-range conditions; they kept plow oxen, and donkeys and mules as pack animals, usually in no more than pairs. Most Greeks would

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have found it impossible to rear large animals in any worthwhile numbers, like cattle (for food) or horses (for military use), both of which require more particular conditions than other livestock (cattle, e.g., requiring lots of fresh water) and more human care. Still, in some areas, Greeks found that they had the ideal feed and range resources even for doing this. The Spartans in the far south of the Greek mainland enter history as pastoral nomads; they settled in the well-watered valley of the Eurotas River, where the slopes of the Taygetos and Parnon mountain ranges (to the east and west, respectively) provided very good pasturage. Later in their history, of course, the Spartans gave up raising animals themselves and shifted this burden onto their public slaves, the helots, whose ancestral lands in Messenia the Spartans conquered for their own benefit. Helot herdsmen thus pastured Spartan livestock across the hills and valleys of the entire southern portion of the Peloponnesus; the environment, and the sizable tracts of land owned by the Spartans, allowed them to build up large herds of sheep and goats, as well as large herds of horses and cattle, and to range them far away from their farms. Spartans prided themselves on the abundance of meat and cheese that they were able to contribute to the common meals (syssitia), which were so essential to their collectivist society; of course, this also meant that they each had a ready and constant “market” for the produce of their animals. In addition, Limestone statue of a ram-bearer, or kriophoros, Cyprus, second quarter of the sixth century BCE. The wealthier Spartans loaned out Greeks dedicated such images, both in life-sized horses for use in the cavalry and stone versions and miniature terracotta versions, Spartan kings presented oxen to at sacred places in hopes of obtaining the favor of gerousiarchs when the latter first the gods in their agricultural efforts; in turn, such artistic depictions help scholars learn more about entered office. Providing gifts of the interaction between the ancient Greeks and animals in this way displayed the their animals. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ levels of status within the Spartan The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, elite and established reciprocal 1874–76)

Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry

bonds among them, which could not have been accomplished without successful animal husbandry. The Athenians faced limitations from the natural environment, like their counterparts in the Argolid and the Megarid to the south and on the Aegean Islands to the east, that made it best to raise their animals not too far from their farms and to keep the numbers of livestock relatively small. Yet Athenian religious ceremonies required something in the order of six to seven thousand oxen and close to fifteen thousand sheep and goats every year, which Athenians raised largely themselves, and Athenian aristocrats kept stables of horses, especially for chariot racing. So, Athenians had to make the most of their limited resources for stock raising on such a scale. In the peninsula of Attica, the slopes of Hymettos, Parnes, and Pentelikon were best for pasturing goats and sheep; as a consequence, production of dairy (especially cheese) and wool (especially high-quality wool from herds owned by the Athenian elite) had much significance in the Athenian economy; like the Megarians, many Athenians even protected their sheep with leather jackets to keep their coats of wool unspoiled. The aristocratic families of Argos, Megara, and Athens owned the most significant herds in their communities and competed with one another over the prime grazing lands, competition that sometimes generated internal strife. Nevertheless, most herdsmen (  poimenes), the ones who actually tended their own herds (no matter how small) and those of the elite, would have belonged to the lower classes in these societies (like the so-called zeugitai and the¯tes, the two lowest of four property classes in Athens). In Attica alone, archaeological evidence reveals an abundance of shelters and corrals for goats and sheep, as well as for pigs and chickens. Owning land scattered across their territory, as Athenians did, made grazing complicated and meant that the typical herd numbered something like fifty animals; if one wanted larger herds, as some of the wealthy and aristocratic Athenians certainly did, one needed to scatter livestock across the region on separate properties. That was another reason why citizens involved in stock raising preferred to own properties near the mountains or along the borders of the city-state; they could find more open grazing in such locales. Grazing animals along borders led to disputes between the Athenians and the Megarians, but these paled in comparison to the “range wars” fought in central Greece. Just as in the “Alpine” environments of Arcadia and Achaea (respectively, the central and northern highlands of the Peloponnesus), pastoralism was key in parts of Boeotia (which means “cattle land”) and the big offshore island of Euboea, where there was less land fit for farming (the growing season being short in any case) and the rugged environment was more amenable to raising livestock. The

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famous conflicts on Euboea between Eretria and Chalcis seem to have been waged over pastureland for horses; the aristocrats of those city-states prided themselves on, and indeed named themselves for, their prowess as horsemen. The communities of Krisa, Phocis, and Locris fought interminably over grazing lands in Boeotia; as early as the sixth century BCE, Krisa lost its lands to its neighbors, who turned it into “sacred land,” theoretically owned by the god Apollo from his shrine at Delphi. The priests of Apollo supervised permanent herds of Apollo, to be culled for regular sacrifices to the god, but the Boeotian states also attempted to reduce conflicts in the area by allowing one another to engage in short-term grazing on the sacred land, while prohibiting farming or annexation. This did not prevent (and perhaps encouraged, in fact) a number of “Sacred Wars” over that territory. In central Greece, as in the northern Peloponnesus, the presence of many border markers still indicate generations of negotiation and continued disputes over grazing land in those regions, something that even the federal leagues of the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) could not entirely stem. The broad plains and rolling hills of northern Greece gave the Thessalians the best conditions for raising large herds of horses and cattle; there was lots of space in which such livestock could move around, lots of natural pasturage for them, and lots of wetlands impossible to drain for farming but perfect for irrigating big animals. Not surprisingly, the Thessalians always favored animal husbandry over agriculture, embracing specialization, which was profitable as well as mandated by the environment. Of course, they had a large supply of workers to tend their herds, in the form of the pre-Greek population, which they had long ago conquered, known as penestai; the penestai made feasible large-scale husbandry for the market. Penestai pastured herds in the uplands of Thessaly during the warmer months and brought them down into the plains during the colder months, when the animals would, in fact, trim what was left of the crops there and, naturally, fertilize the soil at the same time. Few Greeks could afford to do this, and few were successful at it, but the Thessalians topped that short list; the elite clans among them owned huge herds in comparison with the rest of Greece. Indeed, Jason of Pherae, ruler of Thessaly in the early fourth century BCE, had the resources to collect a thousand cattle and ten thousand other animals for one sacrifice at Delphi. Shepherds everywhere in the ancient Greek world had tough lives and worked very hard, especially in the months from April through September. They castrated the rams that helped them round up the sheep; they culled the herds in the spring and the young horses when it was time to train them; they saw to the feeding and health of the animals under their care; they often slept in the same shelters as the animals they tended (even in the snowy winters of the densely wooded high

Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry

elevations of Achaea). Other Greeks frequently regarded herdsmen as among the lowest people on the social scale, working at unenviable tasks. Yet without such herdsmen, the Greek gods would not have had their satisfying sacrificial meals nor would the general public who feasted along with them. Indeed, Greeks typically consumed the majority of the meat in their diet at such sacrifices and the elite owners of livestock made a great deal of their wealth off the market for sacrifices alone. So, despite whatever stigma they may have attached to the actual work of animal husbandry, the Greeks placed great value on its success. From Homer onward, they expected their leading citizens to prove their worth by gifts of animals or animal products especially, to the community itself or to its protective deities. Those who could afford to own livestock achieved a superior prestige, honor, and status for themselves, their families, and their communities across all Greek society. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Landownership; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Trade; Travel; Food and Drink: Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Hunting and Wild Game; Meat; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Horse Racing; Religion and Beliefs: Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Zoology; Primary Documents: Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Burford, A. 1993. Land and Labor in the Greek World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Campbell, G, ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hughes, J.  D. 1994. Pan’s Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Jones, N. F. 2004. Rural Athens under the Democracy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sallares, R. 1991. Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Walcot, P. 1970. Greek Peasants, Ancient and Modern. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

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APOTHECARIES/PHARMACOLOGY The business of pharmaceuticals in the ancient Greek world did not involve largescale chemical refining and processing, but instead small-scale, handcrafted concoction from natural substances. Greek doctors and other healers knew how to make their own medicines; if they chose to utilize the services of others, they would turn to those in their own community or even farther afield who had a particular expertise in making drugs (migmatopoˉlai, pharmacotribeis) or who sold drugs for a living (pharmakeis, pharmakopoˉlai). Despite the apparent variety of terms that the ancient Greeks used, these were often the very same individuals, what we might call, for the sake of simplicity, apothecaries or pharmacists. In their legends, the ancient Greeks associated pharmacological arts with women who had divine connections or with mythical creatures. The centaur Chiron, protector of Jason and mentor of Achilles, for example, was regarded by many as the originator of drug preparation. The nymph Circe used mysterious drugs in wine to turn Odysseus’ crewmen into pigs and to lull them into a false sense of time’s passage; Helen of Sparta (i.e., Helen of Troy), daughter of Zeus and Leda, knew how to concoct a drug that would ease one’s pain, dull one’s sense of grief, and cause forgetfulness. In fact, ancient Greek apothecaries and physicians inherited much of their knowledge of the medicinal or pharmacological properties found in natural substances from generations of human beings who had learned such things through trial and error long before them and especially from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, who had extensive records of drugs and drug preparation going back to the third millennium BCE. The Greeks freely acknowledged their debt to these cultures not only in their medical literature but also in their stories, as when Homer gave credit to an Egyptian woman of wisdom for instructing Helen of Troy in the art of drug-making; indeed, the poet said that everyone in Egypt had such skill by divine grace. Early on, the Greeks plugged into the trade in medicinal plants and plant byproducts, importing these especially from and through Egypt; this included items like acacia, castor, willow, lotus, alum, cinnamon, frankincense, and myrrh. Myrrh from Yemen, in fact, turns up more often than any other medicinal product in ancient Greek medical literature. The Greeks also traded for flaxseed oil from Egypt, balsam bark from the Levant, the now-extinct silphium plant from eastern Libya, and for galingale (ginger) and sesame seed oil from as far away as Southeast Asia. Juice gathered from the roots of the silphium provided a supposed cure-all for everything from sore throat, fatigue, and warts to troubles in childbirth and fits of epilepsy. They also knew of the intoxicating effects of the hemp plant from the Scythians, their seminomadic neighbors to the north of the Black Sea, who used

Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology

it during their burial ceremonies, where hemp seeds were heated in steam baths to create a relaxing, trancelike state among the grieving mourners. In other words, a Greek apothecary (pharmakeus, pharmakopoˉle¯s) would have needed a considerable knowledge of foreign medicines to serve his or her clients. In addition, they had to master the substances to be extracted for drug use from within the Greek territories themselves. The local flora available to Greek pharmacists and physicians included everyday household vegetables and herbs (like leek, celery, beet, garlic, cucumber, gourds, thyme, and fennel), flowers and flowering plants cultivated in their gardens or collected in the wild (like rose, lily, narcissus, violet, cyclamen, iris, calamint, asphodel, marigold, hyacinth, safflower, saffron, crocus, pennyroyal, squill, and opium poppy), cuttings from bushes and trees (like wormwood, sumac, and bay laurel), and even seaweeds harvested by divers in the Aegean. Cucumber-seed juice and garlic were thought to have wide therapeutic properties. A plaster of boiled chickpeas and lentils was compounded for application to cauterized wounds. Medicines made from seaweed were used in the treatment of gout and joint problems, and even as a cure for snakebite. Teas brewed from laurel leaves were used to relieve stomach upset (as is still done today in Mediterranean countries), while Greek oracles may even have chewed on them to induce a hypnotic state in communion with the gods. The pennyroyal was processed to create a contraceptive drug, while solutions of squill and vinegar acted as a laxative. When ingested in small quantities, poppy juice made from either stalks or seeds, roots, leaves, or flowers served as a painkiller or to counter insomnia and when applied externally using a sponge to ease headaches. Greek pharmacists utilized an equally wide range of fauna from their environment, including goats, sheep, horses, donkeys, pigs, dear, hares, snakes, frogs, tortoises, seals, bees, beetles, millipedes and centipedes, worms, coral, birds, and shellfish. They extracted from these milk, fat, bone marrow, blood, gall, and other substances. Similarly, they harvested mineral substances, especially gold, silver, antimony, copper, iron, bronze, lead, bitumen, alabaster, pumice, asbestos, crystal, ochre, and chalk, as well as natural earths from the islands of Lemnos, Euboea, Samos, and Chios. One should not forget that they also collected human hair, blood, bone, and urine for their drug preparations. A Greek migmatopoˉle¯s or pharmacotribe¯s could concoct from human, animal, and mineral ingredients remedies for animal bites, ailments of the eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth, skin, gum, and tooth diseases, tonsillitis, chest congestion, coughing, vomiting, and stomach upset, asthma, genital infections, hemorrhoids, and even sexual incontinence. For instance, the secretions of cantharidin from blister beetles were prepared to remove skin growths or blemishes like warts. Rural pharmacists and healers cooked centipedes or millipedes and poured the resulting liquid into a patient’s ear to reduce

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complaints of earache. Yellow ochre, appreciated for its astringent properties, was said to be good as a drug powder for ulcers. They also made ointments and salves by mixing various plant- or animal-based extracts with beeswax, honey, vegetable or animal fats, or gourd mash. Much pharmacological knowledge would have been acquired from the rhizotomoi, root cutters, professionals in plant lore, who maintained traditional wisdom about plant roots, stems, seeds, leaves, and flowers, especially for medicinal purposes. Apothecaries would have also built upon the common knowledge of the Greek populations, who lived much closer to the land and its flora and fauna than modern people do; the average Greek man or woman would have had a high familiarity with the traditions or lore preserving the medicinal qualities derivable from nature, information crucial to survival in those days. Even in rural communities, where there might not have been specialist drug sellers like those who lived and worked in particular districts of the major urban centers, there would have been plenty of residents who themselves had the necessary pharmacological expertise. And the equipment of the pharmacy shop was easily at hand: terracotta crucibles, small ovens, cauldrons, braziers and tripods for heating and cooking of the ingredients, stone mortars and pestles for grinding them into powders, and so on. Indeed, there seems to have been an expectation in the ancient Greek world that every family be at least capable of producing its own medicine when necessary and keep a storage place of medicinal substances. So, not surprisingly, when Greek medical writers began to publish books on the subject of drug-making, they naturally geared these largely toward a lay readership. Theophrastus of Lesbos (fourth century BCE), for instance, described hundreds of medicinal recipes in his major work on botany. His near-contemporary, the physician Diocles of Carystus, authored an entire book on drugs, while Mantias of Alexandria (third century BCE), who came out of the school of medicine begun by the famous anatomist Herophilus, put together the definitive collection on compound drugs. In the first century BCE, another Alexandrian doctor, Apollonius Mys, even entitled his book on pharmacology Common Remedies, focused primarily on ingredients that could be gathered from one’s own garden or farm fields or in the wild at little to no expense. With the exception of Theophrastus’ works, these early pharmaceutical manuals do not survive intact, but they and others like them provided the foundation for the extant De materia medica by Dioscorides of Anazarbus (first century CE), which covers close to five thousand drugs in some two thousand recipes, organized according to affinity and what effect they had when administered. Dioscorides’ work became fundamental to future pharmacology, as seen in its extensive use by the contemporary Roman scholar Pliny the Elder in his massive Natural History and by the imperial court physician Galen of Pergamum a century later in the three treatises he composed on simple drugs, mixed drugs, and compound drugs. Galen

Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology

reveals just how well ancient Greek pharmacists and physicians knew how to stage, time, and combine drug formulas, sometimes requiring as many as sixty separate ingredients. Modern scholars have only recently begun to utilize laboratory experiments to test the effectiveness of some of these ancient Greek pharmaceuticals. The foremost Greek expert on anatomy, Herophilus of Alexandria, who himself explained the concoction of salves, ointments, and plasters in his writings, once referred to drugs as “the hands of the gods.” Serious tragedians, like Sophocles in his Rhizotomoi or Euripides in his Medea, as well as comic playwrights, like Alexis in his Apothecary or Anaxandrides in his Pharmocomantis, all addressed the world of ancient Greek drug-making. Many saw it as a world in which cooking and medicine overlapped (especially in the realm of spices), or where almost magical power and medicine did so (as when the character of Strepsiades speaks to Socrates in Aristophanes’ Clouds about the shops of the apothecaries where a crystal was used to ignite ingredients on fire). Whether ridiculed or respected, the drug sellers and drug preparers of ancient Greece became mainstay figures of their societies. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Fishing; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Mining; Trade; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Hunting and Wild Game; Legumes; Meat; Olives and Olive Oil; Poisons and Toxic Foods; Potions; Seafood; Vegetables; Wine; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Experimentation and Research; Geography; Medicine; Zoology FURTHER READING Baumann, H. 1993. Greek Wild Flowers and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. Translated by W. T. Stearn and E. R. Stearn. London: Herbert Press. Burford, A. 1972. Craftsmen in Greek and Roman Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hankinson, R. J. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, H. 2001. Greek and Roman Medicine. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Majno, G. 1975. The Healing Hand. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Morton, A. G. 1981. History of Botanical Science. London: Academic Press. Nutton, V 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Raven, J. E. 2000. Plants and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. London: Leopard’s Press. Riddle, J. 1985. Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine. Austin: University of Texas Press. Scarborough, J. 1969. Roman Medicine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Scarborough, J. 1987. Folklore and Folk Medicines. Madison, WI: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy.

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The World of Ancient Greece Scarborough, J. 2010. Pharmacy and Drug Lore in Antiquity. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate. Von Staden, H. 1989. Herophilus. The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BANDITRY. See PIRACY AND BANDITRY BANKING Among the ancient Greeks, professionals and nonprofessionals engaged in a variety of financial endeavors not unlike those familiar to people in modern times. Such banking involved holding deposits for shorter or longer, fixed or undefined periods of time, lending at interest to others, disbursing payments to third parties, brokering financial deals, and so on. Unlike today, though, banking among the Greeks did not include paying interest to depositors. Professional bankers evidently originated as money changers in the marketplaces and harbors of the Greek world; our earliest evidence for them comes from Athens in the second half of the fifth century BCE. Known as trapezitai (sing. trapezite¯s), because they set up shop at a portable table (trapeza), such financial agents tested currency and exchanged coins among the various merchants. Both were crucial tasks in the Greek economy because more than a thousand different Greek states minted their own coins and people employing currency in their business transactions had to, first, determine the comparable rate of exchange for coins from different states and, second, make sure that such coins were of true quality and value in real gold and silver (since few Greek states issued the sort of fiduciary currency common today). Local officials certainly participated in the overall assaying process, but bankers played a crucial role as well. They were well-versed in the respective weights, sizes, shapes, and inscriptions on the official coins of many different communities and could, therefore, identify forgeries. To test for fineness or purity, bankers utilized touchstones (known as basanos, or Lydian stones, originally extracted from Lydia or acquired from the Lydians) of various materials (slate, jasper, schist, lydite, basanite) upon which they would scratch the coin to be valued; they would then compare the color reaction of the streak left by the tested coin with the colors left by scratching pure and alloyed precious metal pins on the same touchstone to determine approximately the level of purity in the coin. More prosaic methods of testing included feeling the coin to identify its weight and tapping it to compare the sound thus made with the ringing of a pure coin. Trapezitai did more than just test and exchange currency. They held deposits in safekeeping for individuals, businesses, and governments; they also provided

Economics and Work: Banking

loans at interest (typically rates were high), again to individuals, businesses, and governments, from their own funds or, if they had permission of their depositors, from the latter’s funds (which was more typical). The larger the financial enterprise embarked upon (such as funding public works for a community or mining operations for a consortium of businessmen), the more likely the bank involved was a partnership among two or more trapezitai. Such partnerships flourished especially in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), to be found across the Greek world from Mesopotamia to Spain, capable of authorizing the transfer of funds over great distances via letters of credit; banks in Corinth in southern Greece, for instance, held deposits from individuals as far away as Egypt and Syria. Indeed, such financial ventures grew complex enough to require the sale of shares in the partnership to expand available capital (and open up greater profits to investors). Despite the fact that such evidence conjures up a picture resembling banking institutions in the modern sense, it really should not. No matter how wealthy or successful they might have become, most trapezitai were metics, resident aliens outside the citizen body of the state in which they operated. Evidence would also suggest that the majority of banks in the ancient Greek context were owned and operated by a single trapezite¯s, as a small family business, with the assistance of other family members, especially sons, as well as trusted slaves. Banks had no legal existence under the law aside from the people who created and ran them; there was no such thing as the incorporated financial institution that exists today. Ancient Greek banks, whether large or small, also acted as brokers between other parties for financial transactions with which they could not or did not wish to get involved. Naturally, they collected finders’ fees for making such arrangements. Certainly the most famous story of banking in the Greek world comes from Athens in the legal dramas surrounding the person and family of Pasion. A generation younger than Socrates, Pasion came from Phoenicia (mod. Lebanon) and worked as a slave to the Athenian bankers Archestratos and Antisthenes. Hardworking, reliable, and savvy, he earned his freedom and was rewarded for his excellent service when the partners retired; they left the bank to him. Prominent Athenians, including the father of the orator Demosthenes, and merchants from foreign parts did business with Pasion, who pushed for and eventually earned Athenian citizenship. On his death, c. 370 BCE, he was considered the richest man in Athens. Pasion’s own former slave, Phormio, inherited the banking business and married the boss’s widow, only to be challenged in court by the boss’s son, Apollodorus, after his mother had died. Phormio claimed that Pasion had willed the bank (and his wife) to him, and this was defended by none other than Demosthenes. Considering how many other banks failed in Athens and elsewhere on the deaths of their founders, Demosthenes argued, Apollodorus should have been grateful to Phormio for saving their family business. Apollodorus, however, disputed the

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authenticity of his father’s will and other documents presented by Phormio, insisting that the latter merely rented the bank (“the table, the site, and the books”) from himself and his brother Pasicles and, thus, owed them not only a lot of money but also obedience. The evidence regarding Pasion, Phormio, and Apollodorus reveals processes and conditions of professional banking among the Greeks. In various court cases, for instance, Apollodorus consults and references detailed deposit and loan records and calls forth witnesses to testify to specific banking transactions; he illustrates how his father did business with depositors from other states, how complicated claims and counterclaims could get with both deposits and loans, and how even the most respectable debtors attempted to default on loans when his father passed away. Clearly, professional Greek bankers took significant risks and handled important transactions in the Greek world, but they were not the only ones regularly engaged in what we would recognize as banking. Long before the emergence of trapezitai, and, indeed, for as long as such professionals were around among the Greeks, many Greek temples also acted as banks. For centuries, temples accumulated wealth in various forms from devoted believers, and temple treasurers maintained quite careful records, for their own sake and in the interest of their private depositors. People trusted the gods at these temples to watch over their own funds and valuable possessions as well (as today in a safe-deposit vault). Temple personnel maintained deposits, especially for individuals and governments, within the sacred treasuries of the gods. Charging a fee to guard deposits of various kinds, temples kept these in metal chests and strongboxes, ceramic jars, or even leather sacks; sometimes, they would melt down currency thus stored and cast it into objects that could more easily blend in with the sacred treasures donated by believers—the cast objects could easily be melted down and recoined when the depositor needed his or her funds returned. Temple personnel also issued loans at interest, using cash reserves as well as the other treasures stored in the rooms of the temple as collateral in the financing of a variety of private and public projects, as well as raising money for the needs of the temple; states like Athens arranged for loans from temple treasuries, thus allowing the latter to accumulate even more wealth through the charging of interest on one of the most prosperous Greek communities. Lots of evidence survives of the extensive savings and loan operations at the very famous Temple of Artemis in the city of Ephesus. The temple treasurers earned a reputation for integrity and respect among their depositors. For instance, the Athenian general and historian Xenophon once left a large fortune at Ephesus; years later, when Xenophon was living in exile in southern Greece, one of the temple treasurers went out of his way to restore his fortune to him. Other famous financial centers included the two most important temples to Apollo, at Delphi and

Economics and Work: Carpentry

on Delos; the latter pretty well had a lock on the financial markets of the Greek islands in the south Aegean. In the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, trapezitai began to cross over into financial functions traditionally engaged in by temples; in Hellenistic times, bankers and temples rivaled one another more and more, likely because lagging religiosity and greater awareness of their vulnerability during the frequent wars of the era made temples seem a less safe option than in the past. At the same time, though, temples utilized the skills of professional bankers (as did the Temple of Aphrodite on the island of Cos or the Temple of Apollo on Delos) to keep and manage income and engage in transfers of funds, creating a sort of symbiosis. More Greek businesses might have been dealing with bankers in those days, but temples remained the biggest overall financiers in the Greek world. See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Currency; Debt; Merchants and Markets; Mining; Orators and Speechwriters; Slavery, Private; Trade; Weights and Measures; Family and Gender: Inheritance; Politics and Warfare: Public Officials; Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Archibald, Z. H., J. K. Davies, and V. Gabrielsen, eds. 2011. Hellenistic Economies. London and New York: Routledge. Austin, M., and P. Vidal-Naquet. 1973. Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cohen, E. E. 1992. Athenian Economy and Society, a Banking Perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dignas, B. 2002. Economy of the Sacred in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ferguson, W. S. 1932. The Treasurers of Athena. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mattingly, D., and J. Salmon., eds. 2001. Economies beyond Agriculture in the Classical World. London and New York: Routledge. Millett, P. C. M. 1991. Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trevett, J. 1992. Apollodoros, the Son of Pasion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CARPENTRY Most carpenters (xylourgoi, tektones) in the ancient Greek world would have been free men of modest means; at Athens, for instance, they belonged to the third property class (the so-called zeugitai). Most of our knowledge for how they worked comes from ancient artistic renderings and passing literary references, building

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accounts, epitaphs, and contracts, typically in the form of inscriptions, as well as the artifacts of their craft, that is, their tools and products that have survived the ravages of time. Unlike Greek metalworkers, who seem to have been skilled in handling many different types of metal, Greek carpenters seem usually to have specialized in only one particular type of woodworking, such as furniture making or statuary or musical instruments, and so on. Although some may have worked alone, most seem to have hired several men (though usually fewer than ten) to assist them in their craft. Many inherited the techniques of their trade from their fathers, uncles, or other male relatives; carpentry was thus largely a family tradition. Still, a carpenter who hired assistants typically apprenticed some or all of them; apprenticeship thus became a key means by which more men could be brought into the carpentry trade. Carpenters usually worked out of their homes, which doubled as their shops (ergaste¯ria, as the Greeks called them), and they sold their wares themselves from the front of their shop or at a stand in the marketplace. Archaeological and literary evidence exists also of large-scale workshops, such as the furniture factory that was owned by the father of the Athenian politician Demosthenes. Carpenters in the Greek world generally relied on those skilled in the selection of timber, who we might call foresters, to provide them with their raw materials, and these might come from the far north of Greece or even as far distant as Lebanon. Still, carpenters probably had some say in the selections made, since they habitually used certain woods for certain projects because of their properties (ash wood or poplar for wheel rims and elm for wheel hubs, for instance, beech for tableware, alder for foundation pilings, oak for ships’ planking, and pine or cedar for roof timbers). The tools of ancient Greek carpenters would be familiar to anyone who knows anything about modern woodworking. To cut timber, they employed handheld bow saws and bucksaws, two-man crosscut saws, and frame saws. The latter consisted of a long blade held in tension often at an oblique angle within a rectangular wooden framing (similar to a modern bucksaw); the piece of timber to be cut into planks would be placed within the framing below the blade, and then one carpenter would slide the framing side-to-side, working the blade downward from above, while another carpenter would work the framing in the same way from below, pulling the blade through the timber. In whichever type of saw they used, Greek artisans knew to set the saw’s teeth in opposing directions or to slant them down the length of the blade in one direction for maximum cutting efficiency. Like their predecessors in the Ancient Near East, Greek carpenters smoothed and shaped wood with adzes and axes, the latter being single-bladed, doublebladed, or broad-headed. The Greeks invented the plane, an evolution from the adze ideal for their fine cabinetry. Carriages and curved handles of wood from

Economics and Work: Carpentry

ancient Greek planes have survived in the archaeological record, as have their blades or irons, some convex or toothed for deep cutting (used in placing veneers), others broad, straight blades (used in smoothing), still others straight and narrow (used for making rabbets or groove joins). To make various types of joints in attaching wooden pieces together, especially in constructing latticework, grids of support slats for beds and couches, window and door frames, boxes and chests, Greek carpenters bored holes and cut grooves using chisels or gouges and mallets or hand-bows and drills; the latter method served well in cutting out mortises. The mortise and tenon (the latter in dowel, dovetail, or tongue shapes) was just one type of joint that Greek carpenters employed. They knew how to make butt joints (where one piece dead-ended in the edge of another to form a corner piece), half-lap joints (where the two pieces were shaved down to half thickness and then overlapped), miter joints (where the ends of the two pieces were cut at an angle and attached to form a smooth corner piece), saddle joints (where a piece was shaved down on two ends to about one-third thickness in order to fit snug into notches in two pieces placed on either side of it), scarf joints (where the ends of two parallel pieces were shaved down and placed above and below each other to appear as they constituted one long piece), and tongue and groove joints (where the long tongue of one piece hid inside a covered groove of another piece). Of course, Greek woodworkers also made use of metal nails, spikes, or rivets, or boiled animal cartilage that served as ancient wood glue; they apparently had no knowledge of woodscrews, but may have used some sort of carriage bolt. They did have calipers, rulers, levels, and the carpenter’s square to measure and even out their work to precision. For the purposes of turning wood, especially in making legs, arms, and feet for furniture, handles for tools, or cups and bowls for the kitchen, and so on, Greek carpenters employed lathes, like those used earlier in Egypt. A frame held a long rod to which the wooden piece to be turned was firmly attached; the rod might be positioned vertically or horizontally. While his assistant spun the rod by means of a rope, wire, or hand-bow, the woodworker chiseled at the spinning wooden piece with an appropriate tool to peel away layers until reaching the desired form. Greek woodworkers were skilled at the finest techniques. Not only could they bend wood using heat or steam to form exquisite curved legs for chairs and smoothly curved walls for containers, but they could also slice the thinnest of veneers from strips of luxury woods which they then glued to more common woods as an enhancement. They could carve delicate claws, hooves, or knees, as of lions or griffins, to decorate their creations or apply ivory, tortoiseshell, parquet, and moldings to imitate or even surpass the motifs of contemporary sculptors. Carpenters made all sorts of household items (like mortars and pestles), parts for vehicles (like axles and rims), tools for farming (like sod hammers and plows).

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They also played an essential role in the construction of housing and public venues. Besides the window and door frames already mentioned, woodworkers often created foundation piles for all sorts of buildings and provided the roofs especially for public buildings, like council houses, colonnades, and temples. The stone remains of ancient Greek temples make many today forget that they all originally possessed gabled roofs of wood. Along each short end of a temple, Greek carpenters laid down long beams of wood as the architraves across the columns; these beams were topped by vertical purlins (uprights with a slightly slanted edge) at the ends of the architrave and vertical props (flat-edged uprights) nearer the center. Another beam or lintel, less long than the architrave, was placed atop these props just under each ridge or pediment, and again topped by purlins and props in similar arrangement; from the center of the latter beam rose the ridgepole to hold up the ridge of the roof. From here, rafters slanted down to the architrave edges, attaching along the way to the purlins. Roof sheathing, usually of terracotta tiles, completed the project. Although the Greeks employed this post-and-lintel carpentry for at least six centuries, by the second century BCE, the tie-beam truss gained in popularity, each truss consisting of a triangle of strong timbers fixed together; replicated across the length of the building, the trusses stretched from columns along one long side to connect columns along the other, providing much steadier support for the roofing. Certainly, such building construction required complexity of skills and design in woodworking, but so also did the erection of fortification walls and siege works, of staging and bleachers for public events, and other projects where many carpenters came to work together to complete a massive, common goal. It should be remembered, too, that Greek carpenters could not have done any of their work without the contributions of skilled metalworkers; carpenters may have created the handles and frames for their tools and devices, but smith artisans forged the blades of copper, bronze, and iron, the beveled, toothed, and curved cutting edges, the mallet heads and drill bits, and so on, that all carpenters depended upon. The ancient Greeks revered their woodworkers. One of their oldest legends told of Daedalus and his son Icarus, woodworkers extraordinaire. Even their heroes knew how to work wood, most famously Odysseus, who built his own bed from a great olive tree, using a bronze adze to plane the trunk, marking out its dimensions straight with a chalk line, and boring holes with an auger; he even compared his attack on the eye of the Cyclops to a drill bit whirred by a team of carpenters with a strap. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Metalworking; Mining; Trade;

Economics and Work: Cloth-Making

Weights and Measures; Housing and Community: Fortifications; Furniture and Furnishings; Housing Architecture; Infrastructure; Palace Complexes, Bronze Age; Public Buildings; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Recreation and Social Customs: Stadiums and Hippodromes; Theaters; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering; Machines; Ships/Shipbuilding; Vehicles FURTHER READING Adrianou, D. 2009. The Furniture and Furnishings of Ancient Greek Houses and Tombs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coulton, J. J. 1977. Ancient Greek Architects at Work. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodman, W. L. 1964. The History of Woodworking Tools. London: Bell. Hodge, A.T. 1960. The Woodwork of Greek Roofs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hopper, R. J. 1979. Trade and Industry in Classical Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. McGrail, S., ed. 1982. Woodworking Techniques before A.D. 1500. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. Meiggs, R. 1982. Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mercer, H. C. 1960. Ancient Carpenters’ Tools. Doyleston, U.K.: Bucks County Historical Society. Richter, G. M. A. 1966. The Furniture of the Greeks: Etruscan and Romans. London: Phaidon. Ulrich, R. B. 2007. Roman Woodworking. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

CLOTH-MAKING In the earliest times of their history, ancient Greeks seem to have utilized different materials to make their clothing, depending on access to those materials within the region where they lived. Over time, though, such differences in clothmaking depended less on access, since increased trade provided materials across regions, and more on cultural expectations, that is, certain Greek communities were expected to make or known for making certain types of cloth. Those who lived along the western coast of Turkey, for instance, had access to supplies of flax (linon) from the eastern Mediterranean countries, especially Egypt. So, they made their clothing mainly out of linen processed from the flax and it became a cultural standard that Ionian Greeks made, wore, and sold linen cloth, even though some of them, like the Milesians, did just as well, and famously so, in making woolens. Linen served as the primary cloth used in undergarments and death shrouds across the Greek world, and was strong enough, especially in

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multiple layers, to serve as a material in protective gear for soldiers (hence, the linothoˉrax). On the Greek mainland, using sheep’s wool (mallos) to manufacture clothing became their standard rather than linen, especially among the southern Greeks. They processed the wool into thicker or thinner cloth so that the clothes and bedding developed from it could accommodate the changes in seasonal temperatures and weather conditions in their particular region of the Greek world. The Greeks also learned from non-Greek populations to the East how to work even lighter forms of cloth out of silk (byssos), which was harvested from sea mollusks in the Aegean region, especially around the island of Cos, but which also came to them via trade from faraway China as early as the sixth century BCE. In addition, they had available what appears to have been a sort of cotton made from the fibers of a local plant, what they called amorgina (produced on the island of Amorgos), though they also imported today’s more familiar cotton (baubax) as a raw material from India by way of Persia and Egypt. Greek cloth-makers dyed their products a variety of colors to suit individual tastes and societal customs. They understood how difficult it was to dye linen, so they tended to keep that cloth in its natural yellowish or greyish color; they might, however, bleach it using certain natural earths or simply by alternately washing it and laying it out in the sun. Wool, if not already in the desired color from the fleece of the sheep shorn, was easier to dye, so outermost garments, like the himation or diploidion, could be made white or brown, and woolen cloth for the chitoˉn might be dyed white, yellow, saffron, golden-brown, or red. A woman’s peplos might be purple, while a man’s chlamys might be brightest red. All these dyes came from processing natural earths, vegetation, or animal byproducts; deep reddish purple, for example, the most prized color for cloth and the most expensive, came from the glands of thousands of shellfish harvested off the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. Recent research suggests that Greek men carried out most of the wool-making, while Greek women did most of the linen-making. Nevertheless, in most Greek communities, since tradition maintained that each family should be self-sufficient in the production of its own cloth and clothes, the women of the family primarily saw to that production; even where professional cloth-making workshops supplanted this tradition in practice, the expectation that Greek women should know how to weave cloth remained. Unless one’s family itself raised the flax or sheep, flax fibers and woolen fleeces would typically have been purchased from the owners of the farms or flocks, respectively, their workers (often slaves) having cleaned the raw material for the purchaser. In the case of wool-working, the purchaser would then beat the

Economics and Work: Cloth-Making

fleeces to remove extraneous debris, as well as straighten them out; all the while, as a protection of one’s lap during this laborious process, they would wear a special shield made of terracotta (the epine¯tron) and curved to conform to one’s legs. Once it was prepared, they would then store the raw material in a tall basket, called a kalathos, inside their house or shop. The next step was to work the raw material into yarn. In wool-working, for instance, the weaver would stick a tuft of raw wool at the end of a distaff (a special stick of metal or wood); then, they would draw out and spin the woolen fibers between their thumb and index finger, aided by a heavy metal spindle attached to the end of the new thread; like a spinning top played with by children, the spindle drew the yarn toward it and helped in twisting and tightening the fibers together (as visualized in a scene on an ancient piece of pottery by the Brygos Painter). To make embroidered fabrics of any material, Greek clothmakers used a wooden frame in the shape of an upside-down trapezoid, not unlike a lyre in overall form. They stood this frame up on their knees; across it, they would work the various designs among the threads. Similarly, weaving made use of a large, rectangular frame; threads were stretched across it vertically (the warp), with pyramidal and disc-shaped loom weights attached to the bottom of the threads to keep them taut and hold them in place; then, more threads were interlaced horizontally (the weft) among the vertical Terracotta oil flask, or lekythos, with scenes attributed to the Amasis Painter, c. 550–530 BCE. threads, over and under, to create The image illustrates Athenian women selecting the fabric. Again, various designs wool, spinning it into yarn, weaving it into cloth and patterns could be achieved by at an upright loom, and folding the finished modifying the method of inter- product. Since almost all ancient Greek cloth was homemade, the scenes depict a common household lacing or by including in differ- chore. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Fletcher ent sections of the fabric threads Fund, 1931)

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dyed in different colors. Cloth-makers would also finish woolen fabrics further by brushing and trimming or fulling them; linen fabrics would be beaten or stonepolished to create a smoother, more radiant surface texture. As already noted, some cloth-making did take place on a larger scale than the home in workshops that scholars often refer to as factories. This had been a tradition in very ancient times, during the Greek Bronze Age at the citadel of Pylos, for instance, and it became bigger business again in Hellenistic times, as when the Ptolemies ruling Egypt produced large quantities of linen in such establishments, where many people were employed. Still, cloth-making remained primarily a family affair across most of Greek history, and relatively small in scale. Nowhere was this more true than in the weaving of ceremonial garments for the statues of Greek deities, which remained the special purview of women; in some communities, women weavers were legally organized into guilds of a sort for this express purpose, giving their responsibilities even greater prestige. We find examples at Argos, where young noblewomen wove a peplos for the goddess Artemis, at Olympia, where a group of mothers wove one for Hera, and at Sparta, where adult women wove a chitoˉn for the god Apollo of Amyclae. Most famous of these women weaving for the gods were the young Athenian women who created the peplos for the statue of Athena Parthenos every fourth year during the Panathenaic festival, embroidering into it images of the most honored Athenian men of the time. Cloth-making in the world of the ancient Greeks, then, demonstrates their skillful ingenuity as well as their stylishness. It also reveals much about their social and cultural expectations and religious customs. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Slavery, Private; Trade; Family and Gender: Women; Fashion and Appearance: Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Foreign Dress; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Panathenaia FURTHER READING Barber, E. J. W. 1991. Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Barber, E. J. W. 1994. Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. New York: W. W. Norton. Gillis, C., and M. L. Nosch, eds. 2007. Ancient Textiles: Production, Crafts and Society. Oxford: Oxbow. Gleba, M. 2008. Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxbow. Gleba, M., and U. Mannering, eds. 2011. Textiles and Textile Production in Europe from Prehistory to AD 400. Oxford: Oxbow. Jenkins, I., ed. 2003. The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Economics and Work: Cost of Living

COST OF LIVING To calculate the cost of living in the ancient Greek world in general is notoriously difficult. For one thing, scholars lack data from many Greek communities and time periods; for another, even where data is available, it is often insufficient for the purposes of sound economic analysis. Scholars must also take into account the differences in the structure and function of ancient and modern economies; one cannot simply translate wages from the past into wages of the present according to some formula of equivalency in the value of hard currency and thus understand the complex cost of living from those wages. Still, a first step in grasping the ancient Greek cost of living can be made by approximating the purchasing power of ancient money. Evidence from the city-state of Athens, whether in the form of public works contracts, references to compensation given to those who participated in government institutions, or accounts of military pay, outnumbers that from any other ancient Greek community. As a result, calculations of cost of living among the ancient Greeks, as in this entry, tend out of necessity to focus on the Athenian example. At Athens in the late fifth century BCE, the worker who hired himself or herself out to another earned one drachma (six obols) for one day’s labor; by a day’s labor, the Greeks typically meant working from dawn until dusk, with breaks in between for one or two meals and usually an afternoon siesta (especially in the hotter months). The drachma wage was the worker’s cash take-home pay, since ancient Greek employers did not make deductions from pay and ancient Greek communities did not collect income taxes on one’s wages. With one drachma, an individual in Athens could have made one of the following food purchases: fifteen pounds of wheat, twenty-four pounds of barley, forty-eight quarts of figs or olives, one-and-a-half quarts of olive oil, two gallons of wine, six loaves of bread, six salted fishes, or one pint of honey. Of course, these are prices for domestic products of decent quality; imported goods of higher quality would have cost much more. Fine wine from Chios, for example, fetched one hundred drachmas a gallon. Scholars estimate that even on two-and-a-half obols per day, that is, less than half a day’s wages, an ancient Greek householder could have fed a family of four on the staple foods of the ancient Greek diet (barley porridge, olives, honey, figs, olive oil, wine, and so on). In addition, most ancient Greeks kept kitchen gardens for vegetables, small livestock for cheese and milk, and fished freely for mullet, octopus, anchovies, etc.; if managed well, none of these supplements to the staple diet would have overstretched expenses too much. Clothing in the ancient Greek world seems quite expensive by modern standards. A day laborer would have had to work six to eight days at the one-drachma

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wage to buy a nice pair of leather shoes or sandals, ten days for a decent cloak or tunic or twenty days for an even better one of wool, and three hundred days for a woolen robe dyed in purple. Today, such items would require far less working time at the federal minimum wage to purchase. Yet a set of cosmetics would have cost an ancient Greek woman only two obols, one-third of a day’s labor, just about the same amount of working time as her frugal modern counterpart. Moreover, when one considers that many ancient Greek women made their own clothes and household linens, that they made them to last and so did not often have to replace them, and that they usually repaired them themselves, the ancient costs of clothing and other items of fashion appear more reasonable to the modern viewer. Furnishing one’s home would have constituted another major expense in the ancient Greek lifestyle. A little more than one day laborer’s wage would have been sufficient to purchase a stool; four to six days a small table; five days a wooden bench; six to eight days a wooden bed. In today’s market, such items vary quite a bit in price, but even considering a wide range from say $100 for a stool to $2000 for a bed would require a modern minimum-wage worker to labor longer than his or her ancient Greek counterpart to purchase items of similar quality. Again, ancient artisans built furniture to last and their customers had such items repaired as often as possible rather than frequently replacing them with brand-new items, as modern consumers tend to do. Cost of living obviously also included those things ancient Greeks needed for their jobs. A farmer, for instance, spent three drachmas to buy a small pig, ten to twelve for one goat, ten to nineteen for one sheep, and fifty drachmas for one cow or ox. As another example, an Athenian soldier could buy a cheap bow for hunting after seven days at a laborer’s wages, a nicer bow and quiver with fifteen days’ worth, and a shield with twenty. Services cost money, too, of course. One could have had a pair of leather shoes repaired for just under four drachmas, gone to a dream interpreter for two obols a session, or spent the night with a prostitute at only one obol for the cheapest or four drachmas for one of high quality. By such standards, the one or two obols paid to Charon to ferry one’s soul across the fabled River Styx at death was a bargain! Just about everyone in the Greek world who could afford the expense bought a slave or two to assist with daily tasks at home or in one’s business. A day laborer would have had to work about seventy-two days to purchase a slave child or one hundred seventy-four days to purchase an adult slave. Slave prices not only varied according to age but also according to origin and skill. A slave from Thrace or Illyria cost only one hundred fifty drachmas, for example, while one from Macedon cost three hundred ten drachmas, and a Syrian slave between two hundred forty and three hundred. A slave trained as a donkey driver could be purchased

Economics and Work: Cost of Living

for one hundred forty drachmas, but a slave goldsmith fetched three hundred sixty drachmas and a courtesan five hundred. Greeks who could afford luxuries did not shy away from the increases in cost of living that they generated. They were willing to pay the three drachmas it cost for a large Red Figure hydria or the five to ten drachmas for a nice decorative painting for the home. They were also willing to pay the one hundred drachmas it took to purchase a silver libation bowl, the twelve hundred drachmas it took to buy a good racehorse, or the ten thousand drachmas it took to have the famous poet Pindar compose a victory ode for them! Consider that a nice townhouse in Athens required some six hundred fifty drachmas to furnish adequately and that a groom from an upper-class Athenian family could expect to receive a marriage dowry from his bride’s family of perhaps as much as eight thousand drachmas! Wages did not remain static in ancient Greek economies. Inflation of wages took place at markedly different rates for different sorts of occupations and public service. In the middle of the fifth century BCE, for instance, a day laborer in Athens earned only two obols a day, as opposed to the one-drachma wage noted above for the later part of that century. That meant an increase in wages of some 300 percent over the course of about five decades or so; the minimum wage in the United States over the last five decades or so has generally undergone a very similar increase. Service on the Athenian ruling Council of 500 earned one obol from about 450 BCE down to 390 BCE and then it rose sharply to one-and-a-half drachmas by the 320s BCE, a 900 percent increase. On the other hand, jury duty in the Athenian law courts, which earned citizens two obols in the 450s BCE, only earned them one obol more thirty years later. In the fourth century BCE, Athenian wages saw only a modest increase. From the time of the Erechtheum building project atop the Athenian Acropolis (409–407 BCE) to that of the renovation of the temple precinct at Eleusis northwest of Athens (329–326 BCE), the skilled wage had only gone up to two drachmas. Overall, the ancient Greeks followed a very frugal lifestyle, always striving to be self-sufficient and live within their means. Indeed, the Greeks of Boeotia and the Peloponnese maintained systems of barter well into Classical times, partly with the express purpose of limiting the cost of living. They also did not have the big monthly expenses of modern Americans, like utilities, insurance, cars, and so on, and few of them had to pay rent for their homes. The wealthiest ancient Greeks, of course, constituted the exception, those who owned estates worth eighty to one hundred talents (that is, 480,000 to 600,000 drachmas). They could afford to buy racehorses or dresses at over a thousand drachmas a piece and did so eagerly to show off their status. See also: Arts: Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Carpentry; Cloth-Making; Currency; Merchants and Markets; Slavery,

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Private; Slavery, Public; Taxation; Weights and Measures; Fashion and Appearance: Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Cosmetics; Footwear; Foreign Dress; Food and Drink: Fruit and Nuts; Grains; Meals; Olives and Olive Oil; Seafood; Vegetables; Housing and Community: Country Life; Furniture and Furnishings; Marketplaces; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Horse Racing; Prostitutes and Courtesans FURTHER READING Archibald, Z. H, J. K. Davies, and V. Gabrielsen, eds. 2011. The Economies of Hellenistic Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Austin, M., and P. Vidal-Naquet. 1973. Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Finley, M. I. 1985. The Ancient Economy. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food-Supply in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mattingly, D., and J. Salmon, eds. 2001. Economies beyond Agriculture in the Classical World. London and New York: Routledge. Migeotte, L. 2009. The Economy of the Greek Cities. Translated J. Lloyd. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Scheidel, W., I. Morris, and R. Saller, eds. 2007. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CURRENCY Today, currency can refer to just about any form money might take, but in the world of the ancient Greeks, they would have understood currency to mean coinage. Coinage came in various sizes and shapes of precious metal, typically silver. Since most city-states produced their own coins, the Greeks as a whole possessed no common currency; the coinage of certain states, especially Athens, did gain wide acceptance, though, as a means of exchange across the Greek world. The earliest form of coinage in that world came from the Kingdom of Lydia, which for nearly three centuries dominated the western half of ancient Turkey from its capital at Sardis. Probably in the seventh century BCE, the Lydian kings began to mint slightly oval coins out of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver; they stamped them, to indicate authenticity, with the head of a lion or with a lion confronting a ram. Archaeologists believe these coins served primarily as pay for the Lydian king’s mercenary soldiers. Many Greek communities soon imitated the Lydian prototypes, especially those communities located within the kingdom’s immediate sphere of influence along the

Economics and Work: Currency

western coast of Turkey. They must have found such coinage a much easier form of revenue collection, that is, of exacting fines and other penalties, and of currency, that is, a simpler means of exchange, especially in large-scale trade, than the system of bartering cattle that Greeks traditionally employed. (Some of the earliest written codes of Greek law, for example, established fines and costs in terms of so many oxen owed.) The island communities of the Aegean followed suit, especially Chalcis and Eretria (on the island of Euboea) and Aegina, and then Athens (which adopted the Euboean standard in the mid-sixth century) and other mainland cities. The basic terms for the new coinage remained old-fashioned. Standard coins were either called state¯r (weight) or drachma (handful); by the later fifth century BCE, they were being divided into fractions for use in everyday purchases, as in the sixth of a drachma, called an obolos (metal rod), which was then itself subdivided into fractions of three-fourths, one-half, three-eighths, one-fourth, one-eighth, and so on, down to one-ninety-sixth obolos. Multiples made larger values, as in the double drachma (didrachm) or the quadruple drachma (tetradrachm). One hundred drachmae were referred to as a mina, a term which derived from the sexagesimal weight systems of the Ancient Near East—hence the fact that sixty state¯res were counted as one mina and sixty minae as one talanton, or talent (scale’s worth), which could also be calculated as six thousand drachmae. Standard coins tended to be minted of silver, with certain fractions of bronze and special issues in gold. The currency of each city-state bore distinctive markings to identify the issuing authority, like the crab on the coins of Akragas, the galloping horse on those of Larissa, the head of the goddess Arethusa and the charioteer on those of Syracuse, the Pegasus on those of Corinth, the lion and star on those of Miletus, and so on. Often, Greeks referred to the currency simply by such identifying emblems, like the “turtles” of Aegina or the “owls” of Athens. Not surprisingly, a certain degree of national pride was attached to the currency of one’s city-state. When the Athenians, for instance, demanded that all their allies utilize Athenian coinage instead of minting their own (ordered through a law we call the “Standards” Decree of 445 BCE), those allies (and Greek states outside the Delian League) clearly understood this as a deliberate violation of their “national” autonomy, a move toward economic uniformity in favor of Athens. Nonetheless, the coinage of Athens still came to be highly regarded by many Greek communities and thus enjoyed wide circulation. The coins of particular citystates tended to circulate locally unless propelled into regional status by certain factors. Aeginetan “turtles,” for instance, were used as far north as Thessaly, as far south as the Peloponnesus, and all over the islands of the south Aegean because of the far-flung trade networks of the Aeginetan merchants in Archaic and Classical times; similarly, Corinthian “Pegasi” and the “eagles” of Chalcis spread extensively into those regions where these two states had established colonies. Electrum

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Athenian tetradrachm depicting the head of Athena on the front and her sacred owl on the back, c. 450 BCE. The Athenians minted some of the finest quality coinage in the ancient world, trusted as a standard and as a model for local currencies by many other Greek communities and even foreign powers. (Yale University Art Gallery)

“Cyzicenes” of Late Classical and early Hellenistic times circulated throughout the Black Sea and North Aegean; and the mega-coins (tetradrachmae and octodrachmae) of Thrace and Macedon penetrated the Near East in large quantities (probably for their value as bullion). Athenian owls surpassed these other regional coinages, first, because Athenian trade and sea power (which meant the wide dispersal of its coins in the hands of its merchants and sailors) reached farther than the others and, second, because of the fine silver content of Athenian drachmae. The intrinsic value of coins depended on their content and varied community by community; Aegina, for instance, operated according to a standard of oboloi at 1.03 grams silver, drachmae at 6.2 grams, and state¯res at 12.4 grams, whereas the standard at Athens was .72 grams per obolos, 4.3 grams per drachma, and 17.2 grams per tetradrachm (compare the U.S. silver dollar at 27 grams). Most communities imported the silver for their coinage through trade, since few possessed or controlled silver mines of their own. Athens, though, had the fantastic mines of Laureion, which gave the city such a reputation for quality silver that its coinage was later adopted by Alexander the Great and even by the Persian Empire (even though the latter already minted its own gold Darics). At various Panhellenic centers, like Olympia for example, Athenian “owls” sold for as much as 10 percent more than their intrinsic value, something unlike the exchange rate of any other Greek currency. Yet, by the middle of the fifth century BCE, the city-states of Magna Graecia had already invented a coinage of bronze whose intrinsic value mattered little compared to its market value. A true fiduciary currency, that is, one based on trust

Economics and Work: Debt

in the issuing authority rather than trust in the metal content of the coins, had been introduced to the Greek world not to replace but to join all the other types. Even when the Roman Empire absorbed the Greek world, local Greek coinages abounded; even the Romans did not impose one universal, standard currency, as they realized the cultural importance of the production of coins in the Greek communities. In the final analysis, the very adoption of coinage by all the Greeks from the Lydians, and the proliferation of such metal currency across the Greek world, revolutionized the transportation and accumulation of money in ancient times. See also: Economics and Work: Banking; Cost of Living; Debt; Metalworking; Mining; Taxation; Trade; Weights and Measures; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Religion and Beliefs: Olympian Gods FURTHER READING Carradice, I., and M. Price. 1988. Coinage in the Greek World. London: Seaby. Cartledge, P., E. E. Cohen, and L. Foxhall, eds. 2002. Money, Labour, and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Kraay, C. 1976. Archaic and Classical Greek Coins. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kraay, C., and M. Hirmer. 1966. Greek Coins. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Meadows, A., and K. Shipton, eds. 2001. Money and Its Uses in the Ancient Greek World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mørkholm, O. 1991. Early Hellenistic Coinage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

DEBT All classes in Greek society seem to have incurred debts. Struggling farmers or artisans might have done so to make ends meet, but the well-to-do also did so to gather investment capital for big projects, as did the elites to finance the maintenance or enhancement of their image in the community. The ancient Greeks provided security for their debts through the promise of repayment in the form of money, services, or labor, through the mortgaging of land, through the exchange of produce, and even through the indenturing of children. To reduce the risk of losing all one’s assets in bankruptcy or defaulting on a debt, the ancient Greeks took out mainly short-term rather than long-term loans, lasting typically no more than one year. According to the eighth-century BCE poet Hesiod, Greek farmers loaned one another seed and implements when they could and borrowed more from wealthy neighbors when needed. Such debts would usually be repaid reciprocally, with exchange of produce or goods, or shared labor, or donation of children as seasonal

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workers. Members of the working classes also loaned one another small sums of money and household items. Such temporary transfers of goods or cash usually took place without the need of written loan contracts (daneia) and without any interest charged. Financial assistance for small needs or complex transactions might also be sought from temples. Many managed a great deal of wealth in land, agricultural produce, and movable property (especially votive offerings in gold, silver, or bronze), and acted as lenders in the Greek world based on these assets. Ancient Greeks frequently took out loans, large and small, from temples at various rates of interest, anywhere from 1 percent to 10 percent per year. At the Temple of Apollo on Delos, the interest rate remained the same throughout the Classical Age (490– 323 BCE), providing its debtors with a great sense of stability. These loans were much more secure and less risky than the loans taken out from private moneylenders, bankers, or wealthy patrons. The interest rates for such “impersonal loans” varied usually between 18 and 36 percent per year, but very risky conditions might even justify an interest rate of 25 percent per day (that is, over 9,000 percent per year!) on certain short-term loans. At Athens, a good rate of interest for a private loan was considered to be 12 percent per year. Greek society thus recognized some customary limits on interest rates, and these tended to stay stable across long periods of time, but no state passed formal restrictions on them, as is done in modern economies. The Greeks also borrowed on easy terms from members of their families, of their thiasoi (religious associations), of their phratries (fictive brotherhoods), and, at Athens, of their demes (neighborhoods or villages). They also had a very firm tradition of borrowing from friends and acquaintances at little interest or no interest, even for big expenses, with the expectation that repayment would occur as quickly as possible. The Greeks referred to this as eranos, translatable as mutual aid. It emerged from strong customs of reciprocity in personal relationships, which was regarded as a civic virtue. Eranos loans thus strengthened ties of mutual obligation among friends and acquaintances and discouraged exploitation or abuse of such relationships. By Hellenistic times, the tradition of eranos had spawned the creation of mutual-aid societies that, among other things, offered credit to their members (eranistai). Wealthy Greeks frequently subsidized one another, particularly in places, like Athens, where they might have to perform liturgies (compulsory public service) or pay extraordinary taxes (eisphora). Eranos and other types of loans in such cases would surely bring them fresh debts, sometimes very large, but would also prove their continuing willingness to take on the burdens of civic responsibility. Merchants, especially those involved in the grain trade, took on debt in the form of maritime or bottomry loans (nautika daneia) to purchase their cargos. Interest rates typically ranged from 20 to 30 percent, compounded as long as the

Economics and Work: Debt

trip lasted, and were secured by the cargo carried or by the ship itself. Sale of the cargo was intended to pay off the debt. Such loans came from the local elites or from professionals experienced in overseas trade (rather than typical moneylenders) who sought to earn profits from financing commercial ventures. An example comes from Athens in the fourth century BCE where the merchants Parmeniscus and Dionysodorus took out a bottomry loan from Dareius and Pamphilus. Parmeniscus was supposed to sail to Egypt and return to Athens with a cargo of grain; his ship would serve as the collateral for the loan of three thousand drachmae. The written lending agreement stated that the borrowers would have to hand over the ship if they did not repay their creditors; if they refused to do so, they would have to pay double the loan as a penalty. The contract further stipulated that the lenders could recover their money from either Dionysodorus or Parmeniscus or both, illustrating that the ancient Greeks understood the concepts of several liability as well as joint liability. Only if the ship sank would the debt not have to be repaid, and then the loss could be catastrophic for the lender as much as for the borrower. Lastly, tough times, and especially crises of some sort, could generate a lot of debt. In the sixth century BCE, for instance, the reformer Solon of Athens attempted to put a stop to the abuses of debt bondage that were producing revolutionary tensions. In his time, and likely long before, citizens of Athens faced the possibility of being enslaved by their fellow-citizen creditors for defaulting on unpaid debts. As a result of agricultural and other economic troubles, many had agreed to contracts of personal servitude: the debtor’s potential services served as the security for the loan in the event that the debtor had no collateral or had already fully mortgaged that collateral. Obviously, one might successfully pay back the debt over time by working it off or one might never be able to, if the debt was too great. The latter was generally the case in Solon’s day, so many of his fellow citizens remained trapped in debt slavery. Moreover, the debt slave might even be sold off to someone else in order to recoup the creditor’s losses from the defaulting. Through the cancellation of outstanding debts and the prohibition against any further enslavement of Athenian citizens for debt, Solon attempted to end the crisis. Outside of Athens, debt bondage remained common even after Solon’s time, though it never seemed to reach the levels that had brought about the danger of social revolution faced in Athens. Although all ancient Greeks clung tenaciously to the ideal of self-sufficiency, especially financial, clearly they were not totally averse to incurring debt. Most did so only when needed; some did so out of desire for more. In any case, the ancient Greek economies, from small to large, could not have functioned without sources of credit and these were particularly essential to the really big economies of places like Athens, Corinth, and many of the Aegean Islands where citizens were heavily involved in trade and commerce.

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See also: Economics and Work: Banking; Currency; Merchants and Markets; Slavery, Private; Taxation; Trade; Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Cohen, E. E. 1992. Athenian Economy and Society: A Banking Perspective. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Finley, M.  I. 1985. Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens, 500–200 B.C. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Harris, W. V., ed. 2008. The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meadows, A., and K. Shipton, eds. 2001. Money and Its Uses in the Ancient Greek World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Millett, P. 1991. Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace-Hadrill, A., ed. 1989. Patronage in Ancient Society. London and New York: Routledge.

FISHING Long before their recorded history, the ancient Greeks engaged in fishing (halieia). Frescoes from the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), like the famous fisherman holding the catch of the day in both hands (discovered in the West House on Thera and dated to c. 1500 BCE), as well as all sorts of pottery painted with various marine life (like the octopus flask from Palaikastro dated to the fifteenth century BCE), reveal fascination with the creatures of the sea from early on. Greeks who lived close to the sea must have learned how to fish from a young age, and in all periods of Greek history there were professional fishermen (halieis, aspalieis) to cater to the needs of a population with such close ties to the marine environment. Depending on the waters in which they were operating, the ancient Greeks “hunted” certain kinds of fish. Over half the fish catch in the Black Sea, for example, consisted of sturgeon. Other typical fish catches in the Greek territories included tuna, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, bass, mullet, dogfish, and wrasse. Greek fishermen also sought octopus, squid, lobster, prawn, eel, and ray. All of these species of marine life served primarily as food in the ancient Greek diet, but Greeks also fished for murex, a shellfish whose body yielded a deep-red, almost purple dye, important in cloth manufacture. Anyone might fish, but ancient Greek society considered fishing for a living to be one of the skilled trades, not any different than a carpenter or a bronzesmith. Fishing was done simplest with a hook and line held by hand (aspalieutike¯). The

Economics and Work: Fishing

Greeks also used fishing poles (kalamoi, kalamides, donakes) and practiced flyfishing. Bait included other fish, feathers, and insects. For larger catches, fishermen made use of long fishing lines to which were attached weighted branch lines (kathetoi) with hundreds of hooks (  polyankistra). They erected barriers (kurtoi) or set up nets (diktua) along the shoreline to catch certain species of marine life, and sailed out in their boats to use drop nets (griphoi) or casting nets (amphible¯stra) of various types and ranges for other catches. Fishing boats varied in size and capacity as well and some were rigged for trawling using scoop nets (sage¯nai) or bag nets (hypochai, kalummata). The most prized fish were caught out in the dangerous, open sea, sometimes with dredging nets (gaggama). Spears (doratoi) were used to catch swordfish, tridents (triodontes) to catch others. They lured fish in different ways, even employing oil lamps or torches at night to attract them (  pyreutike¯ ). Ancient fishermen also made use of particular poisons against particular fish. The philosopher Aristotle, for instance, references a special cake of clay they concocted with poison containing cyclamen root. As noted above, the Black Sea became a key area for fishermen. Also important were tight spaces where the migration of marine species was constricted and where, as a result, fishing proved easier. Such places included especially the straits of Messina, the Hellespont, and the Bosporus. Not surprisingly, in the waters where they worked every day, Greek fishermen had curiosity about how far down it was to the seafloor. They probably measured the depth through the use of weighted and knotted sounding lines. According to the geographer Strabo, the farthest depth recognized by the ancients was identified off the coast of Sardinia, a depth of over 1,000 fathoms. Greek fishermen also tried to plumb the depths in person, placing leaden weights on their legs to make a fast descent into the waters. Doing so without any modern breathing apparatus, they would have been able to dive down to 100 feet easily, down to about 200 feet fairly safely, and even down to 300 feet using extreme caution. Oppian, a poet of the second century CE who dedicated an entire work to fishing, clearly exaggerated when he claimed that fishermen had made it down to some 1,800 feet. No one would have been able to make any farther than perhaps 400 feet in those days. Yet the philosopher Aristotle wrote matter-of-factly about Greek divers making use of equipment that allowed them to draw air from above the surface of the water, thereby prolonging their undersea excursions. Such men also poured olive oil or put sponges in their ears to prevent their eardrums from bursting. Besides curiosity, deep-sea diving had a practical benefit for fishermen: to get down to the seafloor where they could hunt for octopus (who were located by the debris, especially leftover shells, around their hideouts), for pearl oysters, and for sea sponges (who were most worth collecting at the greatest depths). The latter were especially sought after off the coasts of the southeast Peloponnese, Lycia, northern

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Crete, and the Hellespont. Holding a weight in one hand and a knife in the other, sponge divers (spongeis) jumped overboard into the depths and plunged down to the seafloor. Once there, they apparently employed a very white oil to help illuminate the waters, probably producing some sort of reflective or light-­enhancing effect. They cut the sponges as rapidly as possible and then tugged on the rope wrapped around their waist, which stretched back up to their comrades on board the fishing vessel and by which they were quickly hauled back up to the surface. The whole sponge-fishing operation would have taken less than seven minutes. What might also surprise modern readers is that the ancient Greeks engaged in whaling, hunting those species that swim in the Mediterranean Sea, especially sperm whales and, evidently, also killer whales (both generally termed ke¯toi in ancient Greek). Whaling seems to have been most common off the coasts of the southern Peloponnese and around the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. Greek fishermen made thick cords as their lines, like the ropes of a ship’s rigging, attaching to these reinforced and barbed hooks, like those used in rock climbing. Ancient whaling was dangerous, obviously, because of the sheer strength of the captured animal and because of the whale’s capacity to dive to great depths; Greek whalers allowed their catch plenty of line so as not to be dragged under by it and they apparently attached very large, inflated animal skins to the line, which helped to draw the whale back up to the surface. Eventually, they hoped the whale would become fatigued enough to be speared and caught once and for all. Greek whalers must have been tough sorts considering the horror stories ancient peoples told about “sea monsters.” Observation and exploitation of shoreline marshes and lagoons led to the development of man-made fisheries. The ancient Greeks learned how to assist certain species in their natural propagation within such lagoons and also experimented with introducing new species there. Over time, they began to create artificial lakes and ponds, the latter especially for turbot, eels, sea bass, mullet, oysters, and mussels. Already during the lifetime of the philosopher Aristotle, then, the Greeks had advanced pretty far in aquaculture; their Roman “heirs” would continue and magnify their efforts. For particular Greek communities, like Syracuse in Sicily, or Tarentum in southern Italy, or Byzantium along the Bosporus, fishing quickly became essential to the economy. Those populations that lived close to the shoreline set up fish markets for the trade in their local catches. For most Greeks, though, fish was supplemental, not fundamental, to their daily diet. Thus, fishing could become a form of cash-cropping for some professionals, their catch fetching premium prices. Locales farther from the coast, where fresh fish in the marketplace would have been more of a luxury item, would have been willing to pay more. Fishermen did not just catch marine life for their fellow Greeks to eat, though. Ancient Greeks also kept sea creatures as pets and placed them inside sacred enclosures as gifts to the gods. Some marine life was even said to possess oracular

Economics and Work: Landownership

powers, especially thanks to influences from Anatolian and Syrian religion. In such cases, no one but priests or priestesses could consume them! The ancient Greek reading and viewing public obviously had some basic familiarity with the techniques of fishing, considering the widespread use of fishing metaphors in ancient Greek literature. Historians wrote about tyrants netting their people, playwrights about victims of assassination entangled in nets, poets about the spearing of enemies like fish, and so on. By Hellenistic times at least, anyone might study the finer points of fishing since there were fishing manuals available, assembled by the literate from the knowledge of the largely illiterate professional fishing population. Perhaps most Greeks would have regarded fishing as a lowly occupation, but that did not take away from its necessity, and productivity, in their world. Oppian could even depict the fisherman as a sort of heroic figure, lean, strong, fearless, skillful, and cunning. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Tragedy; Food and Drink: Seafood; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Leisure Activities; Science and Technology: Ships/Shipbuilding FURTHER READING Anson, P. F. 1975. Fishermen and Fishing Ways. London: EP Publishing. Bekker-Nielsen, T., ed. 2005. Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Campbell, G. L., ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gallant, T. 1985. A Fisherman’s Tale. Cambridge: Belgian Archaeological Mission in Greece. Radcliffe, W. 1974. Fishing from the Earliest Times. Chicago: Ares Publishers. Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press.

LANDOWNERSHIP The ancient Greeks had an ideal to be self-sufficient property owners. Self-­ sufficiency may have been unattainable for most, but ownership evidently was fairly widespread. Indeed, the ownership of land permeated the values and the discourse of Greek culture and society, in the Greek mind, setting them apart from the older cultures of the Mediterranean world. In Mycenaean times, no one owned land except the wanax, the lord of a particular Greek citadel and the villages around it. He would assign land to those in

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service to him, devoted followers and subordinates (such as his warriors) by means of very detailed and formal written arrangements, but he never seems to have given up his ownership rights to those properties. In the Linear B tablets that record much of our information on Mycenaean culture, the lower echelons of society, the damos, are considered “plot holders,” in the sense that they held land from the wanax as the workers of that land, not as possessors in their own right. Perhaps the Mycenaean tradition of such restricted ownership generated the attitude of later generations of Greeks that land should be much more widely distributed and that no one could be his own master (kyrios) without his own land. By the Archaic Period, Greeks had come to regard landowners as those who had a real stake in the welfare of the community, those who would look out for its best interests and defend it against troubles. Hence, aristocratic cavalry and hoplite soldiers had to come (both in terms of practicality and civic ideology) from the landowning classes. Greeks also came to believe that owning land created a feeling of solidarity and promoted a homogeneous perspective among the members of a community. So, not surprisingly, landownership constituted an essential aspect of citizenship in Greek communities. Indeed, participation in the governing institutions of one’s community depended on it. At Syracuse in Sicily and on the island of Samos, for example, the citizen class was referred to explicitly as the “land sharers.” Elsewhere, not all citizens owned real estate, but certainly the vast majority did so, as at Athens, for instance (where 70 to 80 percent of the citizens were landowners). When Athenian oligarchs gained control of their city in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War (and in opposition to the democratic forces there), they worked to reduce the number of voting citizens by limiting full citizenship rights to landowners alone; this removed perhaps five to six thousand men from the voting rolls, but that was seen as enough to prevent “radical” or “revolutionary” politics in the community. Confiscation of land was considered one of the clearest signs of a community’s defeat and humiliation. Athens most famously utilized this technique many times (not least to export its surplus poor population) by establishing some four thousand or more Athenian soldier-farmers as kle¯rouchoi (from kle¯ros, allotment or parcel) on lands taken in conquest or from “uncooperative” allies. Such “settlers” retained their citizen rights and especially their citizen duties (such as service in the Athenian military). In many Greek communities, and Athens again provides a wealth of information in this respect, traditions associated with marriage kept property holdings small. Each landowning family hoped to pass on its holdings undiminished to the next generation. Sons, for instance, typically inherited equal shares of their father’s land when they married, in order to possess the means to support their own families; in addition, the need to provide dowries to all daughters would have reduced

Economics and Work: Landownership

the capital and other movable wealth available to a Greek father for further land purchases and, indeed, such dowries might have been the proceeds of lands already sold. Moreover, land was used as a form of guarantee or security by a husband to assure the family of his wife that, in case their marriage ended in divorce, he would be able to repay the dowry to his wife’s kin. The subdivision of family real estate in the interest of female ownership did not take place in most Greek communities, in which women could not typically inherit property. At Athens, for example, if a daughter had no brothers to inherit their father’s estate and she had no male child of her own, the estate would pass on to the nearest male relative of the father’s family. Indeed, such Athenian “heiresses” (epikle¯roi) might even be compelled by law to marry such a relative, who managed the land for his wife until the son they produced could take possession of the land. In a few places, though, women could own land. For instance, on the island of Crete, the community of Gortyn allowed daughters to inherit a half share (in comparison to their brothers) of their father’s property and to do with it as they pleased. In Sparta, women owned land outright and became quite influential as a result, especially when taking into account the loss of Spartan men on military campaigns. Unlike in modern times, where real estate is bargained for like any other commodity, among the ancient Greeks land was rarely bought or sold (at least, not very much before the fourth century BCE), but instead mainly inherited. For alienable land, Greek owners expected to be paid in cash and, in a virtually subsistence economy without a system of housing loans like that which operates in the modern world, such payment would have been hard to come by for most people. Furthermore, very conservative laws protected certain categories of land from sale and imposed all sorts of restrictions. Those outside the citizen community, foreigners and resident aliens, were especially limited; they did not typically have any opportunity to purchase real estate outside their place of origin. Agricultural property holdings dominated the world of ancient Greek real estate, falling into a range from five acres or so (20 plethra, to use Greek terminology) to seventy-five acres (300 plethra); the philosophers Plato and Aristotle took this as the ideal range of landownership. Each plethron amounted to approximately one-fourth acre, that is, the amount of land a farmer could plow in one day with his team of oxen. The poet Hesiod described an average farm that fell into this range (say around twelve acres); in his home territory of Boeotia, there would have been many such small-scale, free and independent landowners. In terms of the location of property holdings, the Athenian model was pretty typical here and elsewhere in the Greek territories: a man might own multiple, small or average holdings in a patchwork across the landscape of his community.

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In the regions of Thessaly, Laconia-Messenia, and Sicily, properties were much larger and more expansive, however. The Spartan men of Laconia-Messenia supposedly owned equal portions of real estate, though this seems more a matter of nationalistic propaganda than a reality (except perhaps in the case of each citizen’s “ancient share,” probably granted from the spoils of the Messenian Wars). Of course, the landowners in these parts, whether Thessalian nobles, Spartan citizensoldiers, or Sicilian magnates had slaves (  penestai in northern Greece, heilotes in southern Greece and Sicily) to work their estates for them, with lower level freeholders around as well (like the perioikoi of Laconia) under the thumb of the big landowners. Greeks had a strong notion of collective property rights; parcels of land belonged to the entire community, spaces used by the public, like harbors, roads, meeting places, temples (though technically these were owned by the gods), and so on. Still, privately owned land remained privately owned, with little claim possible on the part of the public authorities. That was why, even in those communities, like Athens, where ostracism or other forms of exile could be imposed, citizens subject to such punishments retained ownership of their land. Governments took very seriously, then, their responsibility to protect private landownership through the development of sworn oaths, affidavits, deeds, and all sorts of rules to reduce and curtail disputes over land rights. Indeed, in Athens, for example, officials entered office with the promise that they would respect all current property arrangements, that there would be no land confiscated or redistributed by government order. Yet city-states kept no land registers; these were apparently regarded as unnecessary in the face-to-face societies of Greece. Owners did place markers (horoi), frequently inscribed with various identifying bits of information, at the boundaries of their properties, though. In Athens, the government took it as a special charge to maintain the horoi on the lands of orphans and widows, making sure their rights were not infringed upon by neighbors. While many people across the Greek world rented or leased land for housing, farming, and other forms of livelihood, from shrines and temples and from the estates of the well-to-do, most apparently owned their own real estate. Such landownership constituted a point of pride in the Greek communities and a characteristic by which they defined themselves as Greeks. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Family and Gender: Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Fathers; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Sons; Housing and Community: Country Life; Housing Architecture; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship

Economics and Work: Masonry FURTHER READING Burford, A. 1993. Land and Labor in the Greek World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cartledge, P., E. E. Cohen, and L. Foxhall, eds. 2002. Money, Labour, and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hodkinson, S. 2000. Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta. Swansea: University Press of Wales. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Osborne, R. 1985. Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osborne, R. 1987. Classical Landscape with Figures: The Ancient Greek City and Its Countryside. London: George Philip.

MARKETS. See MERCHANTS AND MARKETS MASONRY During the Archaic Period, a shift took place in Greek architecture and artistry away from wood toward stone. The sheer number and quality of stone temples and statuary from that era onward all across the Greek world required widespread expertise in masonry (lithourgia). Certainly, their forebears, the Greeks of the Mycenaean Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), possessed great skill in stoneworking, perhaps learned from their neighbors and trading partners, the Hittites of Asia Minor. Continuity from this earlier period is doubted by modern scholars, while some connection to Egyptian techniques and tools has been suggested for the later periods of Greek masonry. Masonry begins, of course, with the raw material extracted from the earth. Greek quarry masters and their men would have received detailed instructions from Greek architects, really builders-in-chief, regarding the type, number, and dimensions of stone blocks needed for particular projects. They had an abundance of rock types from which to choose, including granite, limestone, volcanic rock, and sandstones. Even though they did prefer to utilize certain types of stone for certain projects and were willing to import stone from across their world (like the highly prized marble of the island of Paros in Classical times or the rosso antico marble from the Peloponnesus so widely popular in Hellenistic and Roman times),

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the vast majority of stone-working involved locally quarried material. Hence, the Athenian stonemasons took advantage of the plentiful sources of marble on their Mt. Hymettos and Mt. Pentelikon. Although they did tunnel into hillsides (frequently after fire-setting to explode open the outer layers of rock) and excavate chambers inside them for the extraction of stone, the ancient Greeks primarily dug out open-air quarries, even along slopes and shorelines. Here, they first sought out any natural fractures in the rock, where it would be easiest to separate the desired stone from the rest; often such conditions provided the cleanest splits, in fact. Otherwise, they prepared for trenching the rock. In either case, Greek quarrymen followed a top-down method. Measuring out the width and length of a needed block on the surface of the rock formation, and adding to these measurements a little extra to protect against errors or damage during transport, they then cut channels all around it with hammers and chisels; next applying narrow, long-handled sledgehammers, dull-pointed quarry picks, or mallets to the rock, they slowly and methodically trenched down to the desired depth. They swung these tools downward from overhead to land between their own bent legs, rather than twisting sideways or forward as many people might do with such a tool today. This technique resulted in a flat-sided, straight-line trench, slightly deeper than the desired height of the block to be freed. In the case of a block of limestone, schist, or softer stones, workers chiseled grooves along its underside edges into which they placed wedges of wood; they then soaked these wedges to make them swell up and break the block free. For marble and granite, they inserted wedges of iron or bronze into the grooves and hammered at them with sledgehammers or mallets in a rhythmic and coordinated fashion around the block. Meanwhile, other workmen inserted crowbars or levers of iron into similar grooves along the bottom edge to help pry the block up. These techniques not only freed the desired stones but also gradually opened the quarry ever downward and ever wider at the surface, making it easier to mark out further blocks for quarrying and to remove them to ground level for transport. Once liberated from its parent rock, the block of stone could be sawed (by a pair of stonecutters using a large saw) or split (again using a wedge, hammer, and chisel technique) or even sanded down (that is, rubbed with harder rock, sand, or emery stone powder) into smaller blocks or pieces—for instance, if a change in dimensions after initial measurement was deemed necessary. Any further work would wait until the stone had reached its destination. To move stone blocks from quarry sites to their destinations, paved slipways of flat stones were often constructed, like those running down Mt. Pentelikon in Attica, the blocks sliding along upon large wooden sledges that could handle the

Economics and Work: Masonry

weight (sometimes up to thirteen tons in one block!). Once on level ground, the stones had to be hoisted by block-and-tackle or pushed up ramps to settle atop huge wooden carts or wagons equipped with solid, thick wooden wheels the height of a man, which would transport the stones from the quarry to the construction or work site. These wagons, weighing several tons themselves and carrying usually many tons more of stone, were pulled by teams of mules or oxen; for the great blocks and column drums quarried to construct the Parthenon Temple in Athens, for example, it must have taken hours to position the stones for transport and days to move them to the Acropolis, employing the strength of dozens of teams of draft animals and the labor of hundreds of muleteers. At the destination site, Greek stonemasons now set to work in preparing quarried stone for its purpose. Some of the stones they left in rough condition, as these would be simply piled or layered into trenches and pits cut down to the bedrock to serve as the foundation material for a structure. Other stones, selected for their color or grain or translucence to serve in the upper, visible courses of the structure, they cut into polygonal, trapezoidal, or rectangular (ashlar) shapes and applied toothed/clawed and smooth/flat chisels to remove excess material in dressing the stones to the desired surface texture. Dressing of the stone took time and skill. Masons began by squaring the stone gradually, chiseling first along the outer edges of the surface to achieve level lines, then, working slowly inward to level the entire surface on one side after another. Greek architects, the master craftsmen of masonry projects, especially wanted the tops and bottoms of blocks to be very smooth in order to make the tightest fits between them in construction of the upper courses, whereas the sides where blocks joined one another were left only partially smoothed. To move blocks around the construction site, wooden, iron, and bronze rollers of varied sizes were employed. To lift blocks into place, the Greeks used pulley systems and winches, the ropes of which they typically attached to knobs or studs that had been carved out of the excess layer left by the quarrymen on the sides of the stone; they also sometimes dug channels into the block through which they threaded the ropes from the lifting device or into which they inserted metal tongs for carrying or crowbars for shoving the piece into place; they might also chisel a trapezoidal groove into the top of the block into which was inserted what modern engineers would call a lewis, a combination of three metal bars that would wedge firmly into the groove and thus act as a handle to which the ropes of the lifting device could be attached. Through much of Greek history, any such channels or grooves in the stone were carefully hidden during the final construction process, but in Hellenistic times, the lifting knobs were often left on the outside surfaces of stone blocks as a decorative feature.

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The separate blocks in a Greek building were not just held in place by gravity. Since Greek stonemasons, unlike their Roman counterparts, did not make use of mortar or cement, they cut grooves along the top edges of two adjoining blocks that would set next to each another; into these grooves they inserted iron clamps in double-T, Z, double-dovetail, or staple shapes; similarly, to attach adjoining blocks one atop the other, they chiseled grooves to receive iron dowels in flat rectangle or T-shaped forms. Clamps and dowels were strengthened further and sealed against deterioration by pouring molten lead into the grooves where they had been placed. The entire process of positioning stones step-by-step in the assembly of a structure required from Greek stonemasons proficiency in the same sort of devices, such as measuring sticks, compasses, calipers, dividers, masons’ squares, straightedges, and red-paint lines (similar in function to the modern chalk line), that were employed by Greek quarrymen in marking out the original blocks in the first place. The mathematical skill involved, under the direction of the architect, was greater at the construction site, where he verified the geometrical evenness of each construction layer using an A-frame level with plumb bob. Certainly, finer, more detailed craftsmanship took place there, as stonemasons not only dressed the stones on site but also finished them as well. Using a variety of small hammers and picks, punches, chisels (pointed, toothed, or flat), drills (either curved-handled turned by the circular motion of one man or straight turned with bow-saw or strap by two men), abrasive rasps, files, hard stones, sand, emery powder, and leather, Greek masons now became artistic sculptors, carving, fluting, tinting, and polishing the stones as they rested in their placements. They would also finally remove what remained of the excess layer of stone (as had been left on it at the quarry), which guarded against potential damage right up to the last stage in the process of assembly. Indeed, they might even apply stucco to the stones, especially limestones, to produce the desired finish. If the extant fifth-century BCE records for construction of the Athenian shrine known as the Erechtheum are any indication, Greek stonemasons might be free citizens, metics or resident aliens, or slaves, all working side-by-side, their wages equal, regardless of status, at one drachma per day (three times the dole of 2 obols per day given out to Athenians on the welfare rolls). They typically plied their craft in small-scale workshops, owned and operated by a master mason, but they might also labor in large-scale workshops, like that of the sculptor Phidias at Olympia, or join together to take part in massive projects, like putting up the Erechtheum, which employed perhaps close to two hundred skilled men. As has been seen, an examination of masonry in ancient Greece reveals not only the need for great physical strength but also the many complex skills and the variety of tools required to build the famous Greek masterpieces of stone. No other trade came to define Greek material culture as much as did masonry.

Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets

See also: Arts: Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Metalworking; Mining; Trade; Weights and Measures; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Fortifications; Housing Architecture; Infrastructure; Palace Complexes, Bronze Age; Public Buildings; Recreation and Social Customs: Stadiums and Hippodromes; Theaters; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering; Geometry; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Barletta, B. 2001. The Origins of the Greek Architectural Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carpenter, R. 1970. The Architects of the Parthenon. London: Penguin. Coulton, J. J. 1977. Ancient Greek Architects at Work. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herz, N., and M. Waelkens, eds. 1988. Classical Marble: Geochemistry, Technology, Trade. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. Hopper, R. J. 1979. Trade and Industry in Classical Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Jenkins, I. 2006. Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Korres, M. 1995. From Pentelicon to the Parthenon. Athens: Melissa. Lawrence, A. W. 1957. Greek Architecture. Baltimore: Penguin. Maniatis, Y., N. Herz, and Y. Basiakos, eds. 1995. The Study of Marble and Other Stones Used in Antiquity. London: Archetype Publications. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rockwell, P. 1993. The Art of Stoneworking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Travlos, J. 1971. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Waelkens, M., N. Herz, and L. Moens, eds. 1992. Ancient Stones: Quarrying, Trade and Provenance. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Wycherley, R. E. 1978. The Stones of Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

MERCHANTS AND MARKETS The ancient Greek world had a small, but active, class of professional merchants, men who made their living through buying and selling the goods of others. They understood the concepts of taking risks for profit and of investing capital in new ventures, even when that capital had to be borrowed from others at interest. Despite this, merchants in ancient Greece never reached the scale of profit-making and investment to become modern-style capitalists.

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Most scholars have argued that a professional class of merchants did not exist in the Greek Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE). Instead, members of the elite families in that period of Greek culture, the people who tightly controlled the citadels at Mycenae and elsewhere, traded the goods their subjects produced for the luxuries, such as ivory, gold, copper, and so on, that the elite itself sought from abroad. This would have resulted in a fairly closed system of actual buyers and sellers, despite the widespread networks established in the Bronze Age connecting Greece to all parts of the Mediterranean. In the “dark” centuries after the collapse of Bronze Age Greek culture (c. 1100– c. 800 BCE), any trade that went on among the Greeks probably was conducted through gift exchange within the elite or by the producers of goods themselves, such as farmers, taking their own produce to market in small boats along the coast, as the poet Hesiod described. This basic pattern of merchant-farmers, as well as merchant-artisans, continued for most small-scale trade in the rest of Greek history. Trade with foreigners was something different. During the Dark Age, goods from outside the Greek territories came into those territories largely thanks to Syrian and Phoenician merchants. Those cultures thus developed a rich, and apparently proud, tradition of maritime commerce. They even bought products from one part of Greece to sell in other parts of Greece. From the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) onward, though, Greek merchants ventured out again, as their Mycenaean forebears had done, to trade in goods themselves and established themselves as the major merchants of the Mediterranean. In either local or long-distance trade, the close connections between commerce and agricultural commodities meant that the “exchange rates” utilized in the Dark Age were valued in animals (especially oxen) or stored grain. In the Archaic Period, this began to change, with metal objects, like tripods or spits, replacing this valuation system, from which eventually emerged the system of currency using silver coinage (which the Greeks learned from the Lydians) so essential to the booming business of merchants in later time periods. Yet agriculture always remained a strong element in the work of professional Greek merchants; many of them made their livelihoods selling the wine, olive oil, or grain of Greek farmers. The merchant who remained local in his trading ventures was known as a kape¯los or empoleus, or by some more specialized term referring to what he sold, like the elaiopoˉle¯s (olive oil merchant) or xylopoˉle¯s (timber merchant), or oinemporos (wine merchant). The long-distance merchant, who would almost always have taken his wares by sea, was known as an emporos. There are not too many emporoi known by name in the historical record, but there are a few. One is Sostratus of Aegina, who made use of the slip-way (diolkos) through the Isthmus of Corinth to travel back and forth between Greece and Italy (particularly the region of Etruria); a literate man, Sostratus owned his own merchant vessels, not something

Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets

all merchants could say. Colaeus of Samos could, and he became wealthy enough from his one trading venture at Tartessus in Spain that he could dedicate to the goddess Hera a fine bronze cauldron worth six talents and bring home a profit for himself of sixty talents. Both kape¯loi and emporoi pooled resources and skills with fellow merchants if they felt the need, thereby creating modest, small partnerships (koinoniai or koinopraxiai). Merchants did not form commercial corporations, even for the larger ventures that carried goods far and wide across the Mediterranean Sea. In Hellenistic times, they came close, though, when associations of emporoi (wholesalers), naukle¯roi (shippers), and ekdocheis (warehousemen) emerged. These associations often named themselves for the gods that protected them, like the “followers of Heracles” in Tyre or the “followers of Poseidon” in Berytus, who held their meetings on the Greek island of Delos in the second century BCE. Emporoi sometimes permanently relocated to the centers of foreign trade. For instance, many Greek merchants from Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands settled at or worked through the Greek emporion (trading settlement) of Naucratis in the Nile delta; they exchanged Greek oil, wine, and silver for Egyptian linen, papyrus, grain, and other items. At the emporion of Pithecusae (mod. Ischia) off the Italian coast, Euboean Greek merchants from Chalcis and Eretria were joined by Levantines. Like other important emporia where merchants gathered, some staying for extended periods of time, along the coasts of Spain and France and the Black Sea, at Pithecusae and Naucratis, one would have seen Greek merchants employing in their business ventures individuals native to the area where the trading settlement was founded and one would have heard multiple languages spoken by Greek merchants who needed to do business with their comrades and rivals from various cultures (as attested by extant mercantile correspondence inscribed on lead sheets). Even if they remained based at home, Greek emporoi had to spend a lot of time away from home. They might be gone, for instance, for the entire sailing season, from late March through late September, to acquire perfumes from Corinth, hides from Euboea, salted fish from the Black Sea, or wine from Chios. They might even travel from the Red Sea across the ocean to India in search of the aromatic Himalayan spikenard, Kashmiri spices, agate, carnelian, berberis pigment, cloth of cotton or silk, and pepper. Since they were away for such long periods of time, Greek citizens who were merchants could not participate much in the community life and decisions of their polis, which were very “hands-on,” with none of the “remote access” available to modern citizens. This placed citizen-merchants in a weaker and more vulnerable social and political position than their fellow citizens who owned land or hired themselves out as laborers; such individuals were always close to home so they engaged more in civic life and had a greater impact on the direction in which it

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headed. Greek merchants, thus, made the conscious choice to limit their involvement as citizens in exchange for a profitable career. No wonder, then, that many Greek poets expressed a common theme of merchants as exiles. Perhaps that is also why, as scholars suggest, more metics, resident aliens in the Greek communities, involved themselves in the import-export trade than citizens did. Metics came from other Greek states or from foreign lands primarily as merchants interested in trading goods from place to place; many settled in Athens, for instance, where they could not own land or participate in politics, but where they were protected in their business ventures, taking Athenian goods to ports abroad and bringing all sorts of goods in to Athenian markets. Indeed, legal recourse at Athens was quite efficient, since the dikai emporikai (commercial courts) convened every month in the winter (when merchants were “grounded”), treated noncitizens just as equal before the law as citizens, and were designed to arrive at rapid settlements in mercantile disputes. The most profitable game in town for a merchant in Athens was the grain trade; it was possible to triple one’s investment if one guessed right the supply and demand for grain each sailing season. Athenian officials stationed at the Long Colonnade in the Piraeus accepted bids from various merchant-wholesalers for the delivery of a certain amount of grain by a certain date; each wholesaler who gained a grain contract from the state either financed the venture himself or, more often, acquired financing from a banker or a member of the Athenian elite (as noted above). Elite Greeks, though, often tried to hide their involvement in such “lowly” trade as silent financial backers. In some cases, lenders and merchants agreed by contract to share the profits of the voyage; in others, the merchants simply took out a loan at interest (with rates anywhere from 20 to 60 percent for the term of the voyage). A well-known example involved Dionysodorus and his merchant-partner, Parmeniscus, who made a contract with the bankers Dareius and Pamphilus. The latter two financed the voyage of the merchants by loaning them money with their ship as security; this was typical of ancient Greek maritime loans, the riskiest and potentially most profitable of them all. Parmeniscus was supposed to sail to Egypt to buy a cargo of grain for Athens, while Dionysodorus stayed in Athens. If they failed to repay the loan, the contract stipulated that they hand over their ship to the lenders; if they refused to do so, the contract stipulated that they would have to pay double the amount of the loan. The contract further stipulated joint liability as well as several liability, meaning the lenders could claim their debt from both merchants or from just one of them (especially in the event that Parmeniscus died on the voyage). Logically, if the ship sank during the voyage, everyone lost their money; Dionysodorus and his partner would not have to repay their debt.

Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets

The lenders in this instance discovered that Parmeniscus had dumped his cargo at Rhodes to make a greater profit on its sale and then refused to return to Athens in order to carry out more lucrative ventures between Egypt and Rhodes; the “con man” Dionysodorus knew all about this, of course, and tried to avoid the contractual obligations to his and Parmeniscus’s creditors. The latter hired a professional orator (perhaps Demosthenes) to write their legal brief for them, which made the case that only the intervention of the Athenian laws through the effective action of the Athenian jurors could enforce the agreement when Dionysodorus attempted to default on his obligations. Lots of lawsuits took place in Athens over such contracts because the potential losses, and the realizable profits, were so high. Demosthenes did argue on more than one occasion that his city-state had better continue to pledge itself to the enforcement of private mercantile contracts because otherwise trade would cease to grow there and investment in trade would especially dry up. Merchants traveling from place to place in their business activities felt especially vulnerable to syle¯, the widely accepted custom allowing private individuals as well as governments to seize the goods of a foreigner in compensation for damage done by his country or even one of his countrymen. Merchants themselves also engaged in syle¯ in their search for a sort of vigilante justice in the case of their own losses. The right of syle¯ could turn into harassment of anyone from the alleged offender’s community, even of resident aliens living otherwise peacefully in one’s country. To protect individual persons, such as foreign merchants, from attacks like these, governments extended to them the privilege of asylia, freedom from reprisal, while in their territory. Asylum, thus, meant the promise on the part of a particular state and its citizens of keeping hands-off from a foreign visitor’s possessions. Commercial treaties (symbola) between states also helped to halt predatory despoliation of visiting merchants. The Athenians took most seriously the economic benefits brought to their community by merchants and so maintained numerous protections for them within their legal system. Athenian efforts at supporting merchants from home and abroad paid off by making the principal port of the city, Piraeus, the central market of all Greece for many years. This might sound like an extravagant claim, made by the Athenian orator Isocrates and reinforced by other authors, but archaeological evidence does confirm it. Ancient Greeks would have seen merchants everywhere in their world. Periodic markets or fairs were held during every month, both in urban and rural settings. At sacred places and during religious festivals, merchants were there to sell what the participants and spectators might need or want; thus, the fairs on Delos and at Olympia, where buyers and sellers paid no customs duties or sales taxes.

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Even in battle zones, merchants set up temporary markets, since armies always needed things. Finally, of course, there were the permanent marketplaces, like the ones in the Athenian agora and at Piraeus, or the permanent street-front mercantile shops, like the ones at Olynthus, all taxed and regulated by local officials. In Homer’s Odyssey, merchants are not shown much respect; being an emporos was a bad thing. Most other extant literary sources (with the exception of some courtroom speeches), similarly written by Greeks who had little or nothing to do with trade, look down on merchants, revealing one cultural prejudice against them. Still, it is hard to tell from evidence that comes from such a narrow subset of the ancient Greek population how widespread an attitude the sources are reflecting. Regardless of how strong or how common was their negative viewpoint, places settled at first by merchant-explorers, like Al Mina in Syria and Pithecusae in Italy, opened the way to colonization by Greeks of all walks of life. In other words, the colonization movement, and all of its attendant economic and cultural changes and exchanges, resulted from the efforts of emporoi and the Greek world would never have been the same nor have had the same impact on other peoples without them. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Banking; Currency; Debt; Orators and Speechwriters; Taxation; Trade; Travel; Viticulture; Housing and Community: Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Religion and Beliefs: Asylum; Science and Technology: Exploration; Ships/Shipbuilding FURTHER READING Boardman, J. 1999. The Greeks Overseas. London: Thames & Hudson. Bresson, A. 2016. The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cartledge, P.C., E.  E. Cohen, and L. Foxhall, eds. 2002. Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economy of Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Casson, L. 1991. The Ancient Mariners. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, E. E. 1973. Ancient Athenian Maritime Courts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garland, R. 1987. The Piraeus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Garnsey, P., K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker, eds. 1983. Trade in the Ancient Economy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Harries, E. M., D. M. Lewis, and M. Woolmer, eds. 2016. The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households, and City-States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hopper, R. J. 1979. Trade and Industry in Classical Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Meijer, F., and O. Van Nijf. 1992. Trade, Transport, and Society in the Ancient World. London and New York: Routledge. Millett, P.  C. 1991. Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Economics and Work: Metal-Refining Möller A. 2000. Naukratis: Trade in Archaic Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morley, N. 2007. Trade in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parkins, H., and C. Smith, eds. 1998. Trade, Traders, and the Ancient City. London and New York: Routledge. Reed, C. M. 2003. Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ridgway, D. 1992. The First Western Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salmon, J. B. 1984. Wealthy Corinth. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thompson, D. B. 1993. An Ancient Shopping Center: The Athenian Agora. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

METAL-REFINING Just as mining for metals was a risky business in the world of the ancient Greeks, so was the refining of metal into material that could actually be utilized by various craftsmen. The Greeks benefited from centuries of refining techniques developed by the older civilizations of the ancient world and perfected them to their own economic and cultural advantage. Once Greek miners (metalleutai, metalleis) extracted sought-after ores from the earth, they reduced them to a very small size (as small as a nut or even a pea) through repeated hammering. By Hellenistic times, evidence suggests that not only might this be done by hand, the long-traditional method, but also using hammers driven by waterpower (that is, motivated by action transmitted via gears and axles from waterwheels), upon which the Romans especially later capitalized. The Greeks also employed grinding mills not dissimilar from their grain mills, to reduce gold ores, for example. Once reduced, or beneficiated to use the technical term, the crushed ore was washed to separate waste stone from the metal-bearing rock by shoveling the ore into a water flow. Excavations in the ancient mining district of Laureion, especially at Thorikos in southeast Attica, have revealed quite sophisticated washing facilities with large water cisterns as well as washing tables used by the miners in the processes of preparing the silver-bearing ores for refining. Even reduced and washed ore contained as much as 60 to 80 percent dross that had to be burned away as slag in the smelting process. The Greeks carried on the smelting methods of their neighbors in the Ancient Near East, constructing furnaces of baked clay and stone in the shape of cylindrical shafts, roughly three to six feet tall and ten to twenty inches wide; for silver smelting, as at Laureion, they built wider and taller furnaces, roughly nine to twelve feet high. The typical smelting process did not begin with the furnace, however, but with the burning of a massive pile of wood under an almost complete cover

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of soil, which carbonized the wood; this transformation took several days and yielded charcoal that would generate much higher temperatures than wood, and less smoke, when ignited inside the furnace. Once the charcoal was ready, the ancient Greek refiners poured it into the furnace from the top and allowed it to heat up for about an hour. Then, they mixed more charcoal with whatever crushed ore they intended to smelt (the technical term for this is charging) and dropped that mixture into the furnace. The lower part of the furnace was equipped with pipes to which bellows could be attached to increase airflow and thereby raise the temperature inside the furnace; bellows typically consisted of simple leather sacks that could be squeezed or pots topped with leather covers that could be pumped up and down to generate the flow of air. The more familiar accordionstyle bellows were also known. Airflow might also have been regulated by caps of pottery placed on the top of the furnace shaft, which would also impede the outflow of gases produced in smelting. Possibly, this allowed Greek refiners to anneal the smelt, that is, to gradually heat it and cool it down. The ancient Greeks were able to heat up their furnaces close to 2000°F. Thanks to chemical reactions among the dross elements in the smelted ore, refiners could often tap slag or waste material, typically silica and iron oxides, reduced to liquid form, out from the furnace. After such drainage, they would add more charcoal and crushed ore, and even silica to combine with iron oxide (or iron oxide to combine with silica), a fairly sophisticated process for turning as much of the dross as possible into tap slag. Smelting could take as long as six to ten hours. The color of the flames coming out of the furnace gave the refiners the indications they needed about conditions inside and what had to be done next in the process. Further refining could be accomplished inside superheated terracotta crucibles that allowed oxidation of impurities through evaporation and also skimming off of more slag. The smelting process also varied depending on the metal being refined. In the case of iron (side¯ros), the Greeks roasted the crushed ore before smelting it; once smelted, it came out of the furnace as a bloom, a white-hot pasty mass of metal (not fully molten because the Greeks could not heat their furnaces to the necessary 2800°F). They then hammered the bloom considerably to remove the remaining slag from it, leaving behind wrought iron. A more liquefied iron bloom could be produced by adding more charcoal or some other source of carbon into the furnace during smelting, which would temporarily increase the temperature but also dissolve more carbon into the iron smelt. The highly sought after lowest carbon content iron, that is, steel (chalubos, kuanos), was tough for Greek refiners to achieve; they tried to do so primarily in small crucibles in which they were able to heat wrought iron with charcoal and wood to nearly 3000°F; this carburizing of iron took many hours and could only produce small quantities of steel.

Economics and Work: Metal-Refining

Likely the oldest smelting process, which again the Greeks would have learned from the peoples of the Ancient Near East, was used in releasing copper (chalkos) from the ores containing it. Inside the furnace, the heated charge of charcoal and copper ores released carbon monoxide, which would react with the copper to deoxidize it, yielding molten copper. Removed from the furnace and placed in a crucible, the copper would be heated again to skim off any residual slag and then cooled in the form of ingots. The ancient peoples combined copper and tin (kassiteros) as an alloy to yield bronze (also called chalkos); by adding lead (molubdos) during the smelting process, Greek smithies lowered the alloy’s melting point, which liquefied it into cast bronze. Making brass (again called chalkos!) was a more complicated matter; they roasted zinc ore (  pseudargyros) and mixed it with molten copper and charcoal in a small lidded crucible, which they heated to 1600°F; the zinc then transformed into a gas and, trapped inside the crucible, dissolved into the copper (the technical term for this is cementation). Just as mining for metals was a risky business in the world of the ancient Greeks, so was the refining of metal. Besides the dangers of smoke inhalation and burns, smelting furnaces low to the ground released poisonous sulfur dioxide into the air and sulfides and heavy metals into the soil and water of refining districts. Yet, whereas mining seems to have employed primarily slave labor, metal-refining seems to have employed a mixed workforce of free as well as slave. Regardless of the dangers or the distinctions among workers, just as with mining, metal-refining became an essential component in the success story of Greek society, warfare, and civilization. See also: Arts: Gold and Silver; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Currency; Masonry; Metalworking; Mining; Slavery, Private; Trade; Weights and Measures; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering; Machines FURTHER READING Craddock, P. T. 1995. Early Metal Mining and Production. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Healy, J. F. 1978. Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. London: Thames & Hudson. Humphrey, J. W., J. P. Oleson, and A. N. Sherwood. 1998. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Lamb, W. 1929. Ancient Greek and Roman Bronzes. Chicago: Argonaut. Mattusch, C. 1988. Greek Bronze Statuary: From the Beginnings through the Fifth Century B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Mattusch, C. 1996. Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Penhallurick, R. D. 1986. Tin in Antiquity: Its Mining and Trade throughout the Ancient World with Particular Reference to Cornwall. London: Institute of Metals. Ramage, A., and P. T. Craddock. 2000. King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Treister, M. Y. 1996. The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History. Leiden: Brill. Tylecote, R. F. 1987. The Early History of Metallurgy in Europe. London and New York: Longman.

METALWORKING Considering the many Greek stories of smith-artisans, even of the most famous like Phidias, working in many materials, scholars conclude that each Greek smithartisan (chalkeotechne¯s, chalkeus) possessed a range of talents rather than being a specialist in one particular type of metalwork. Thus, for much of Greek history, it would have been very common for a bronzesmith also to be an ironsmith and for all sorts of steps in the process of metalworking to take place in the same establishment, whether accomplished by one or several artisans. Of course, particular Greek communities became famous for certain metalwares, like the Corinthians, whose very respected bronze industry, famed for its colored alloys, operated, with only brief interruption, from the sixth century BCE to the twelfth century CE! Smith-artisans in the Ionian communities of western Turkey competed with the older bronze traditions of the Ancient Near East by using fewer and larger cast sheets of bronze to form their statuary. Athens earned renown as a center of armor production. In Hellenistic times, when the private market for objects in metal became stronger than ever, specialty workshops within communities emerged as a more common phenomenon. Greek metalworkers, going back to the time of the poet Homer and well beyond into the Bronze Age Mycenaean citadels (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), had a fairly standard set of tools: hammers, tongs, anvils, pokers, crucibles and forges with bellows, bow saws, two-handled saws, files, rasps, scrapers, drills, punches, and pumice for polishing. Of course, they made most of these tools of the trade themselves. They knew how to cast, hammer, cut, rivet, and solder various metals; they were experts also at inlaying (especially with niello, a black alloy of sulfur with silver, lead, or copper), engraving, filigree, embossing, repouseé (beating a relief design outward from the underside of the metal), and many other decorative techniques. Greek smith-artisans also dressed in a recognizable way, scantily clad in waistcloths because of the hot conditions in which they worked, wearing

Economics and Work: Metalworking

skullcaps of leather or felt to protect their heads (primarily to keep their hair from catching on fire). Most metalworking would have taken place in multiple, relatively small workshops located on the outskirts of Greek communities; lots of debris from and evidence of workshops for statuette production at Olympia, with their stone, mudbrick, and terracotta furnaces linked by canals to sunken molds in the sand of a nearby streambed, serve as a clear illustration. Some city centers did contain “industrial” districts, though, as at Corinth, where bronze- and ironsmithing took place in the area of the agora, or at Athens, where remains of workshops have been found in close to twenty locations, including around the Acropolis and the agora, and southwest of the Temple of Hephaestus and down toward the Pnyx, where hearths and pits for casting and baking of metal objects have been discovered. Foundries for the creation of major projects in metal, also located on the outskirts of a polis, seem to have been used only once and then abandoned. Yet the ruins of the Greek colony at Al Mina in Syria have revealed long-term installations for commercial-scale bronze production. Certainly, ancient Greek smithies worked most with bronze (chalkos), produced from alloying copper and tin. Much of their exploration and colonizing beyond the Greek homeland took place in an effort to access such resources for bronze manufacturing. Copper, with its attractive red and brown hues, was a very soft and malleable metal, easily worked with simple tools into jewelry, kitchen items, and so on, but tin, even softer and more malleable, had little separate purpose among the Greeks but to be combined with copper in bronze production. Greek craftsmen came to be highly skilled at alternately heating a piece of bronze in a forge and then hammering it on an anvil to form it into the shape they desired, even into a very thin sheet. Squatting over a small anvil, they could hammer such sheets into tablets for inscriptions or helmets for soldiers. Discs of hammered bronze sheet metal could be turned on a lathe at high speed where they were folded and shaped into many forms, as well as cut and trimmed with chisels, and otherwise decorated. Greek artisans also knew how to cast molten bronze fresh from a smelting furnace or a crucible into hollow or solid forms, the latter using a simple mold, the former using the lost-wax method. This technique, practiced at least as far back as the ninth century BCE, began with pinching, rolling, and carving pieces of wax to build up into a model of the desired object; thoroughly covered with an overlay of clay, the wax model was then fired inside a furnace. The clay cover would thus bake into a mold while the wax inside would melt away, typically drained off and collected for further use. Now the clay mold would serve as the receptacle of molten bronze poured inside it. After cooling, the mold would be removed carefully to reveal the bronze casting. In the fourth century BCE, Greek artisans like

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Lysistratus of Sicyon even perfected a technique of applying plaster to a human face and turning the resulting mold into a form for lost-wax casting. Greek metal-artisans made all sorts of solid objects in this way, such as handles, legs, and feet for household furnishings, hardware and jewelry, medical and scientific instruments, or parts for personal items, tripods and cauldrons, weapons, and statuary. The lost-wax method also allowed them to mass produce many such objects. Cast bronze parts for larger items were pieced together with metal rivets, pins, and lead soldering; life-size bronze statues, for instance, typically consisted of either six or seven pieces (in the case of nudes) or fifteen to twenty pieces (in the case of clothed images), their joins concealed anatomically or in the clothing using a foolproof process. Bronze was definitely the most versatile metal in production and use by the Greeks, but it also was one of the most attractive. It had a natural goldish appearance, enhanced considerably by burnishing and polishing (which also could make the surface highly reflective, as in their standing, hand-held, and round box mirrors), but different color effects could also be achieved by adding different elements to the molten bronze during smelting or molding, and through planned patination, as with the black skin of the Riace Bronzes. Moreover, adding molten lead (copper-tin alloys already contained lead, sometimes as much as 30 percent) to the bronze would yield a heavier and more durable result; also, the higher the percentage of lead, the more fluid the bronze became at a lower temperature, making it easier to flow-weld (to join using molten metal as a filler). Of course, Greek smithies utilized lead in its own right as well, forming it into sheets, wires, weights, and sling bullets. After bronze, iron (chalubos, kuanos) would have been the most frequently worked metal among the Greeks. When working with wrought iron, which had been first hammered out from its furnace bloom to remove impurities, Greek artisans hot forged it, that is, hammered it on an anvil at red-heat, to form it into the desired shape; as far back as the eighth century BCE, they also understood the value of heat treatments, whether superheating and quenching the iron in water, or gently heating and tempering it for more durable results. Greek ironsmiths knew how to add phosphorus to iron in order to create a metal ideal for small cutting tools, like knives and sickles. To produce larger iron products, or to combine parts of iron and bronze, they hammer-welded the pieces together, again at red heat, or hot riveted them. The seventh century BCE sculptor Glaukos of Chios introduced the technique of soldering or flow-welding iron plates instead of using rivets or hammer-welding to join them. The ancient Greeks (as noted in the writings of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus) acknowledged the debt they owed in metalworking to the many techniques learned and the much knowledge gained from their contacts in Egypt (especially

Economics and Work: Midwives and Wet Nurses

after the establishment of the Naucratis colony in the seventh century BCE). They told many stories about places within the Greek world, like those about Daedalus on Crete or about Rhoecus, Telecles, and Theodorus on Samos, which placed Greek achievements in the context of wider developments in metalworking among the peoples of the Ancient Near East. As with mining for metals and refining of metal, Greek smith-artisans stood on the shoulders of their foreign predecessors and did their best to improve upon older skills. See also: Arts: Gold and Silver; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Currency; Masonry; Metal-Refining; Mining; Trade; Weights and Measures; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering; Exploration; Machines FURTHER READING Craddock, P. T. 1995. Early Metal Mining and Production. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Healy, J. F. 1978. Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. London: Thames & Hudson. Hopper, R. J. 1979. Trade and Industry in Classical Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Humphrey, J. W., J. P. Oleson, and A. N. Sherwood. 1998. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Lamb, W. 1929. Ancient Greek and Roman Bronzes. Chicago: Argonaut. Mattusch, C. 1988. Greek Bronze Statuary: From the Beginnings through the Fifth Century B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mattusch, C. 1996. Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Penhallurick, R. D. 1986. Tin in Antiquity: Its Mining and Trade throughout the Ancient World with Particular Reference to Cornwall. London: Institute of Metals. Treister, M. Y. 1996. The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History. Leiden: Brill. Tylecote, R. F. 1987. The Early History of Metallurgy in Europe. London and New York: Longman.

MIDWIVES AND WET NURSES Ancient Greek women relied a great deal on midwives for the sorts of medical care that in most societies today would come from medical doctors. They relied on wet nurses also for medical assistance, but especially for help in nurturing their newborn children.

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Midwives (akestrides, iatrinai, iatreuousai, maiai) advised and assisted women with menstruation issues, as well as during pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, and menopause. Midwives also helped women through most illnesses. None of this was considered the purview of medical doctors; the latter typically only aided women when they had particular diseases or if they needed surgery of some sort. Women consulted midwives when they wondered whether or not they were pregnant and hired midwives to help them during childbirth. Delivery of babies in the ancient Greek world did not take place in hospitals but at home and no doctor was present unless the circumstances demanded emergency medical treatment. Instead, ancient Greek women went through the trials of childbirth surrounded by other women, members of the family usually, with the aid of midwives. Midwives understood well the different stages of cervical dilation; when they observed full dilation, they moved the expectant mother on to a birthing chair. Two midwives stood on either side of her, pushing on her abdomen in prescribed ways in order to help her release her child. Together with a third midwife, who sat or kneeled in front of her to help remove the newborn, they did breathing exercises with the expectant mother to help her control the process of labor and its pain levels. Labor pains were also lessened by means of cataplasms prepared by the midwives from various scented plants and herbs and placed by them on different parts of her body. In cases of difficult childbirth, midwives employed various medicines and instruments (like the forceps) in their efforts to turn or remove the baby. We often read about shaking the mother up and down to force the baby to drop. Other methods were also utilized to induce labor if it was not happening properly. Once the baby was delivered, the lead midwife cut the umbilical cord, cleaned the newborn with warm water and sponges, and sometimes applications of olive oil with wool, and wrapped up the child in cloths. She also typically advised the parents, based on her observations of their newborn’s physical condition, whether to keep the baby or not; the ancient Greeks, we should recall, had a tradition of abandoning children shortly after birth if they had physical deformities. The assisting midwives, meanwhile, similarly cleaned the mother and moved her to a bed under warm blankets for rest. Greek medical writers, all of whom were male, offered advice about midwives; the physician Soranus, for instance, who lived during the early second century CE, wrote an entire handbook on gynecology for midwives. Such experts recommended that three midwives be present during delivery; that they not only be experienced in their craft, and perhaps even mothers themselves, but also formal students of therapeutics; that they have a good bedside manner and physical strength. Medical writers like Soranus expected a great deal of expertise and learning from midwives. Since there was no required training of midwives, however, such expectations could not be guaranteed in practice. Still, this simply meant that

Economics and Work: Midwives and Wet Nurses

ancient Greek families had a range of midwives from whom to choose, those with more experience and training, those with far less, and all those in between. Most midwives likely had plenty of experience of particular techniques as well as knowledge of plants, herbals, fragrances, and medicines needful in delivery. Midwives seem to have come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. Wet nurses (trophoi, titthai), on the other hand, were typically slave women, former slaves, or free women of the lower class. Wet nursing seems to have been a fairly common occupation for women from those social levels. They breastfed their charges typically for two years, sometimes up to three; after the first six months, they supplemented their breast milk with other foods until their term of service was completed. Often, wet nurses cared for more than one child at a time; these other children similarly nursed by her were known as suntrophoi. The ancient Greeks thus apparently embraced wet nursing as a form of shared child-rearing. Trophoi not only fed their charges but also bathed and clothed them, tended to their illnesses, sat with them while their parents were away, and so on. It seems that many Greek children would have been raised by wet nurses even after weaning. Not surprisingly, a young child formed strong bonds of attachment with his or her wet nurse, as well as sometimes with the other children she nursed in tandem with him or her. No wonder, then, that epitaphs erected for wet nurses, usually by their former charges, often remember them in very fond terms. Famous midwives included the historical Phainarete of Athens, mother of the philosopher Socrates, and famous wet nurses included the legendary Eurycleia, who helped raise Odysseus. Like midwives, wet nurses had experience with the various health issues faced by women, from menstruation to menopause, and were called in to assist them on occasions beyond just the needs of their infants. Like midwives, wet nurses typically had no formal education and sometimes incorporated superstitious or magical methods into their repertoire of traditional techniques and knowledge. Also like midwives, wet nurses were expected by medical doctors to be strong, healthy, sober individuals. Both professions were essential in the ancient Greek world for the health and wellness of women in physical, psychological, and emotional terms. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Childbirth and Infancy; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Health and Illness; Science and Technology: Inscriptions; Medicine; Primary Documents: Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE)

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The World of Ancient Greece FURTHER READING Cohen, A., and J. B. Butler, eds. 2007. Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dean-Jones, L.-A. 1994. Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Golden, M, 1990. Children and Childhood in Classical Athens. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. London: Duckworth. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, H. 1998. Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Kleijwegt, M. 1991. Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Lefkowitz, M. R., and M. B. Fant. 1982. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Neils, J., and J. H. Oakley, eds. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pomeroy, S., ed. 1991. Women’s History and Ancient History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Scheidel, W., I. Morris, and R. Saller, eds. 2007. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Temkin, O., trans. 1956. Soranus’ Gynecology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

MINING One of the most dangerous professions in the ancient Greek world, mining (metalleutikos techne¯) was also one of the most important. Mining supplied the raw material for currency, weaponry, and tools of all kinds, defining elements of Greek civilization, warfare, and the economy. Mining for metals, known since earliest antiquity, exploded during ancient Greek times as demand especially for iron (chalubos, kuanos), silver (argyros), and gold (chrysos) increased dramatically (iron for use in weaponry and construction, silver and gold for use in currency) and methods of ever-deeper mining supplanted older traditions used in extracting copper (chalkos, the metal in oldest use among the ancients). The Greeks were not alone in these endeavors, as the Phoenicians, their paramount trading rivals, played a significant role in prospecting and mining for metals on the island of Sardinia and on the Iberian Peninsula, looking for copper, silver, gold, mercury (kinnabari), lead (molubdos), and tin (kassiteros).

Economics and Work: Mining

Yet the territories inhabited by and conquered by Greeks abounded in mining opportunities. In southern Laconia, the Greek populations dependent upon or enslaved by the Spartans worked iron mines, one of the keys to Spartan military success; other important iron mines could be found in Attica, Asia Minor, Epirus, and Macedon, on Euboea, Crete, and other Aegean Islands, and on Sicily. The south shore of the Black Sea, as well as the Cyclades Islands, Chios, Thasos, and Siphnos, contained significant silver resources, in ores that also gave the Greeks large quantities of lead; so did the regions of Thrace, Attica, and Macedon. Settlers from the Levant had been extracting copper from the island of Cyprus for generations, going back to the early Bronze Age, The Greeks eventually pushed their way into these operations, but they found that northern Asia Minor and Macedon were rich in copper, too. Like western Asia Minor, Thasos, Siphnos, and Thrace, Macedon could also boast important gold deposits. Indeed, just as they had learned copper mining from the Cypriots, the Greeks likely learned gold mining from the Thracians and the western Anatolians, both of whom were working gold mines long before the Greeks arrived in the Aegean basin. Cyprus and the western and northern coasts of Asia Minor additionally gave them zinc (pseudargyros), while tin, very rare in their world, could be found only in Asia Minor and the Iberian Peninsula, and then in small quantities; Greeks and Phoenicians thus had to import most of their tin from outside the Mediterranean basin, from as far away as the British Isles. Like miners of more recent times, ancient peoples, including the Greeks, searched for traces of desired metals or minerals in water sources (the beds of streams and rivers, for instance) and then they dug trenches or shallow pits into the ground where they believed those metals or minerals had originated. The Greeks had an awareness of what sorts of surface topography might indicate the presence of certain minerals or metals beneath the surface; ancient authors, like the famous botanist Theophrastus of Lesbos, even catalogued the particular plants that Greeks knew tended to grow in areas rich in certain minerals or metals. Such indications and identifications long aided in further prospecting. By Classical times, most miners in the ancient Greek territories appear to have been either slaves or criminals sentenced to capital punishment; even during the Bronze Age, evidence for miners in Greece suggests at least dependent status if not servile. Yet those who supervised and directed the work of such miners in the Classical and later eras were certainly experts in the techniques of mining, free men who came from backgrounds of higher status, and those who “owned” the mines were mainly very wealthy individuals, even members of the local aristocracy, who could afford the financial requirements and risks involved in such an enterprise.

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It seems to have been a general rule across the Greek communities, illustrated best by records in Athens, that private individuals only had ownership rights to the surface of the land, while the city-state itself owned everything below the surface, that is, the output of any sort of mining venture. Mines, then, could be privately leased, auctioned off by local officials, as in the case of the Athenian poˉle¯tai, but remained nevertheless always public property, their owners and operators answerable to government regulation and inspection. It also appears likely that Greek city-states, as in the case of Athens, granted separate and unequal concessions in the same mining area, thus ensuring a certain level of rivalry and competition among the operators there. This also meant that a citystate would have expected to receive different dividends from the separate mines, even though they might all be leased at the same rate. The famous Athenian silver mines of Laureion, for example, were all leased at a rate of 4.17 percent of their output, but some concessions there earned the Athenian state fees of 3,700 drachmae per year, whereas others earned up to 3 talents per year (nearly five times as much). Mines might also be owned by monarchs and operated as royal monopolies. Such was certainly the case in northern Thessaly, where King Philip of Macedon seized territory in 356 BCE that was under dispute between the Thracians and recent Greek settlers; no doubt he was attracted by the highly productive gold mines that the Thracians had long been working in the vicinity. The king reestablished the Greek settlement as Philippi and the mines yielded him the huge amount of 1,000 talents (that is, 6 million drachmae) of gold every year. In succeeding generations, government agencies of the Hellenistic kingdoms similarly engaged in direct operation of mines, like the gold mines in eastern Egypt, held as royal monopolies by the Ptolemies. Our best knowledge for mining operations among the ancient Greeks comes from the combined literary and archaeological evidence for the Athenian silver mines of Laureion. These operated at their highest rate of output, for some seventy years, from 483 to 413 BCE. Mining for silver here involved sinking vertical shafts as deep as 300 feet below the surface; workers used wooden ladders or cut steps into the rock to climb up and down the shafts. They then tunneled mining galleries horizontally outward from these shafts; at Laureion, some of the extant galleries are as far down as 150 feet and stretch hundreds of feet long. It took perhaps a whole month to dig a dozen feet of gallery into the subsurface, which was shored up by wooden beams or simply by keeping certain natural rock-outcropping supports intact. Since galleries were dug only about three feet wide or high, miners typically worked to obtain ore in very cramped conditions, literally on their knees or backs. They dug under desirable deposits to undermine them, the collapsing ceiling

Economics and Work: Mining

freeing the ores in chunks, which were then cleared out in hand-held baskets or trays. Miners made use of small oil lamps to provide artificial lighting in the depths of the tunnels. Their tools included very familiar items, such as picks, shovels, spades, mattocks, hammers, wedges, chisels, hoes, and rakes, all of iron and likely heat-treated for greater durability. Greek miners had to be very careful about ventilation and drainage in their deep-vein mining. To provide adequate air flow, they set and positioned small fires at the base of selected mine shafts which would literally suck air and keep it circulating as drafts through the complex of underground galleries. When excavating for ores below the water table, Greek miners had two options for adequate drainage: if the mine sat inside a natural slope, such as a hillside, they could simply tunnel out a channel for the release of excess ground water; if the mine sat far below the surface and there existed no natural drainage path to follow, they could devise methods to raise the excess groundwater to the surface. In Classical times (490– 323 BCE), this might involve simple chains of buckets operated by pulley systems to lift the water up the shafts, but by the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), Archimedean screws, waterwheels, and perhaps even force pumps could be employed, as they were employed later to great effect in Roman mining operations in France, Spain, and elsewhere. Ancient miners never left shallow digging behind. Open pit mines continued in use, for instance in gold mining. Workers flushed water in from local streams or rivers to clear away debris and unwanted ores. In addition, ancient Greeks also panned for gold and utilized various sorts of sluice equipment in placer mining, stretching woolen fleeces across the sluices to capture grains of gold, as was done on the Pactolus River of Anatolia. To open up mines along hillsides, whether for the purpose of stone-quarrying or exposure of metal-bearing ores, the Greeks followed the very old tradition of fire-setting, where the surface of the rock was superheated by fire and then suddenly doused (though the fire was not usually extinguished) with water or vinegar (the latter having been found to be especially effective in breaking open limestones). This shattered the rock at the surface, either releasing the desired stone or preparing the way for further demolition and excavation, by hand tools, into the stone or ores. Suffocating heat, minimal air, noxious gases and contaminants, and potential flooding made mining a life-threatening profession in ancient times, as it can still be in the modern day. Ancient Greek miners exposed themselves to these dangers nonetheless, primarily because the need for metal in their world was so high. See also: Arts: Gold and Silver; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Currency; Masonry; Metal-Refining;

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Metalworking; Slavery, Private; Trade; Weights and Measures; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering; Exploration; Machines FURTHER READING Craddock, P. T. 1995. Early Metal Mining and Production. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Healy, J. F. 1978. Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. London: Thames & Hudson. Humphrey, J. W., J. P. Oleson, and A. N. Sherwood. 1998. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Lamb, W. 1929. Ancient Greek and Roman Bronzes. Chicago: Argonaut. Mattusch, C. 1988. Greek Bronze Statuary: From the Beginnings through the Fifth Century B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Penhallurick, R. D. 1986. Tin in Antiquity: Its Mining and Trade throughout the Ancient World with Particular Reference to Cornwall. London: Institute of Metals. Ramage, A., and P. T. Craddock. 2000. King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Treister, M. Y. 1996. The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History. Leiden: Brill. Tylecote, R. F. 1987. The Early History of Metallurgy in Europe. London and New York: Longman.

ORATORS AND SPEECHWRITERS Ancient Greek democracies, most famously ancient Athens, expected their citizens to defend themselves in court and to engage actively in political venues. This meant a great deal of public speaking, for which not every citizen was well equipped. Those citizens who were composed and delivered their own speeches, while those who were not requested the assistance of professional orators (rhe¯toˉres) and speechwriters (logographoi), literally men skilled in the writing of arguments, to compose speeches for them to deliver. All surviving examples of such speeches, whether for public display (epideictic), as part of political discourse (symbouleutic), or for delivery in the law courts (forensic), come from Athens. In ancient Athens, someone might have become a frequent orator or speechwriter simply because his own political or legal interests drew him into doing so. Moreover, family members, friends, fellow demesmen or phrateres, or other fellow citizens who knew of his business, political, or religious expertise or inside knowledge, might have called upon him to serve as their advocate or to write up a speech for them. The politician-general Pericles served as advocate on behalf of his friend, Anaxagoras the philosopher, against charges of impiety; the character Strepsiades in Aristophanes’ comedy Clouds expected his son to defend him in court against his hounding creditors.

Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters

In the Athenian courts, the victim of a crime or an informant who knew about it could choose to lay the initial indictment in a case and then leave the rest of it to someone they had chosen to speak for them. Additionally, the state selected gifted speakers as public prosecutors in those instances when the vital interests of the community needed a particular sort of representation. Even though there were restrictions on how often someone could appear as an advocate, there were still all sorts of opportunities in Athens for skilled orators and speechwriters. Many performed such services for others based on personal reasons, as noted above; many did so in exchange for some form of compensation, even though Athenian law technically forbade the receiving of payment for such services. Orators and speechwriters clearly possessed knowledge about the law and about procedures, acquired primarily through experience, since the Greeks had no law schools. If they had any education in rhetoric, its purpose would have been narrowly defined as learning how to speak and write well in order to win any case. So, in the construction of their works, they followed patterns laid out by teachers of rhetoric (which many were themselves). They looked first to identify the debatable issue or issues involved and then considered what to include in addressing that issue or those issues. In the case of crimes, they always sought to transfer the blame to someone else or posit a reversal of roles in “what-if ” scenarios; together with that, they frequently employed conjecture and rhetorical questions to create reasonable doubt in the minds of their listeners. Turning to the disposition of main points within their narrative, they were careful in definition of terms, argument and counterargument, diction, and style of delivery. Speechwriters had the more difficult task than orators, especially for the courtroom. They sought to compose their works in such a way as to mimic the speech patterns of their clients and to give the appearance of being an oration delivered “in the moment.” Very long speeches were expected to be delivered by heart, which presented another challenge for the writer. They tried to cover all the facts that they deemed necessary, even though they would have had little evidence available to them before the actual trial. They would have had little advanced warning about what testimony or evidence would be presented during the trial, but they were still expected to anticipate any potential counterarguments and rebut them in advance. Not surprisingly, extant speeches tend to cover more bases than would seem necessary, since their authors had to consider what might be said without any sure knowledge of what would be said; they frequently emphasize the credibility, moral worth, legal, political, and philanthropic public service of the speaker, which could be used to disregard any unpleasant facts or arguments; and they often contain multiple versions embedded in the speech, ready to be delivered to the jury if needed. The works of ancient Greek orators and speechwriters are notoriously emotional, either character references or character assassinations.

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Some sixty Athenian orators and speechwriters are known by name today, mostly from the fourth century BCE. In Hellenistic times, lists were compiled of the ten who had achieved recognized status as the greatest exemplars of their craft. Antiphon (c. 480–411 BCE) was the earliest. He seems to have written a number of political speeches and developed quite a reputation for his style in that regard. The only full speeches of his that survive, however, are twelve practice speeches (in three sets) and three actual courtroom speeches written for clients in homicide cases, two of them in defense and one for the prosecution. These works demonstrate Antiphon’s talent for character assassination and the construction of arguments from probability, a tried-and-true rhetorical method introduced by the Sophists, with whom Antiphon undoubtedly trained. Besides his work as a logographer and as an advisor to clients, Antiphon was a leading figure in the oligarchic revolution of 411 BCE, for which comedic playwrights ridiculed him. Indeed, he suffered execution for the role he played in that event. Antiphon clearly came from the upper crust of Athenian society, as did the aristocrat Andocides (c. 440–c. 380 BCE). Andocides was graced with an innate ability with words, especially with rhetorical questions, but he did not turn that ability into a profession, either as an orator or as a logographer. What we know of his work comes from two speeches delivered in his own defense. Andocides’s life in Athens was fraught with serious obstacles. When he found himself implicated in the scandal of the herms in 415 BCE, he turned state’s evidence and then felt the need to leave town for a while; having returned a few years later as a supporter of the democracy, the Athenian oligarchs had him arrested. He came home again under the restored democracy of 403 BCE, only to be brought up on charges of impiety in 399 BCE, just like the philosopher Socrates, and permanently exiled as a traitor in 386 BCE! As far as we know, Isocrates (c. 436–338 BCE) only appeared once in court, as a litigant for antidosis (exchange of liturgy obligations). Well-trained by the Sophists, he composed many important speeches in the form of public addresses and letters, but they were all, in reality, essays written by a man whose weak voice and timid personality made him better suited to the schoolroom than the courtroom or the council chamber. Like many of his contemporaries who came from similar well-to-do backgrounds, he chose to exert his influence on the orators and speechwriters of the day behind the scenes as their educator; he practiced his students in constant writing exercises and in discussion of their own products as well as his. Isocrates’ textbook on rhetoric became a standard for later generations. Only one of fifteen recorded speeches of Lycurgus (c. 390–324 BCE) is now extant, launched by him against a merchant who had turned traitor against Athens. A sophisticated stylist with expert knowledge of the Greek poetic classics, Lycurgus did not write for others but delivered his orations himself. He came from an old

Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters

priestly family in Athens and was thus of very high status in Athenian society. He also possessed great wealth, enough to serve as a banker with charge of considerable deposits. Not surprisingly, the Athenian people selected him as their finance minister for a dozen years. One of his leading contemporaries, Aeschines (c. 390–c. 320 BCE), on the other hand, perhaps came from a humble background, but details are conflicting. Aeschines did serve as a distinguished soldier in the Athenian army, worked as a clerk in the political arena, and even acted on the stage for a while. Despite these challenges, he did not hire himself out as a logographer; instead, he built up a reputation for himself as an orator, possessed of a great voice and admired for his handsome looks. He operated primarily in the political realm, attempting to direct Athenian policy toward conciliation with the growing power of King Philip II of Macedon and engaging in verbal contests with political opponents. His three extant speeches take us through the world of bribery, immorality, corruption, political rivalry, and treason. Aeschines established a reputation for skillful characterization and organization, as well as clarity. Another of Lycurgus’ contemporaries was Hyperides (c. 389–322 BCE), a very wealthy student of Isocrates and of his rival, Plato. Hyperides delivered his own speeches, especially on diplomatic issues (where he displayed his fierce hostility to the rise of Macedonian power—for which he was eventually executed), and composed speeches for many clients from the lower levels of Athenian society. In one of his most celebrated cases, he defended the courtesan Phryne against charges of impiety. Hyperides apparently engaged in what today would be considered courtroom theatrics by stripping Phryne nude in front of the jury to prove her purity and innocence. These three men were all connected to Demosthenes, regarded by later generations as the greatest of all Attic orators; Lycurgus was a staunch ally of Demosthenes, Hyperides an associate of his with whom he later had a falling out, and Aeschines a staunch opponent. Indeed, Aeschines left Athens because of his failed confrontations with Demosthenes. (Still, Athens’ loss meant gain for the island of Rhodes, where Aeschines established a successful school of rhetoric.) Demosthenes (c. 384–322 BCE) came from an affluent background (his father ran a profitable arms manufacturing business) but did not grow up in it because of his father’s untimely death, which left Demosthenes an orphan at a young age. His guardians then either mismanaged or deliberately plundered his estate. Thanks to rigorous training in rhetoric, Demosthenes became a skilled logographer and a formidable orator, remembered for his biting sarcasm, stinging insult, fiery patriotism, and expert command of the finer points of law and government. He defended his own interests in court, but otherwise wrote for clients on cases involving maritime law, assault, bribery, and so on; he did, however, remain very politically vocal

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himself, especially in his opposition to what he perceived as the threat of Macedonian power (which eventually precipitated his suicide). Not all orators and speechwriters in Athens were Athenian citizens; some were metics or resident aliens, like Lysias of Syracuse (c. 445–c. 380 BCE), for instance. A friend of both the democratic politician-general Pericles as well as the antidemocratic philosopher Plato, Lysias came from a well-to-do family in the manufacturing of shields for the Athenian military; he himself had learned rhetoric from some of the great teachers of southern Italy and ran a school of his own in Athens. When Athenian oligarchs seized power as the Thirty Tyrants in 404 BCE, Lysias and his family lost everything; he turned to speechwriting to make a living. In that career, he apparently wrote over four hundred speeches, known for their grace and clarity. Some thirty orations, mainly forensic, survive, only one of which did he deliver for himself in court; the rest he composed for clients. Even those written for others, though, contain Lysias’ unmistakable views in support of Athenian democracy against its internal foes. Another metic active as a logographer was Dinarchus of Corinth (c. 360–? BCE). He was especially active in later fourth century BCE, pursuing on behalf of the Athenian state accusations of bribery brought against Athenian citizens suspected of collusion with the Macedonians. Dinarchus evidently brought only one case to litigation himself, against a man named Proxenus, whom he accused of fraud. Eleven courtroom speeches survive from the career of Isaeus (c. 420– c. 350 BCE), whose identity either as a metic or as an Athenian citizen remains unclear. Despite the obscurity of Isaeus’ life story, his argumentative skill and his legal expertise reveal themselves clearly in his extant works, all of them on inheritance disputes. Demosthenes studied under him and many later orators adopted elements of his narrative style. Only a fraction survive of all the many works from the many ancient Greek orators and speechwriters, and, even among those that do survive, many have been wrongly attributed to famous exemplars when they, in fact, appear to have been written by others whose names did not possess as much clout with later generations. The corpus of speeches attributed to Demosthenes serves as an example, since less than half seem to actually have been written by him. As we learn more about the ancient practitioners of rhetoric in forensic and political venues, we find how essential they were to the functioning of democratic institutions, how knowledgeable they were about the latter, and how clever they were in their efforts to hide their own identities behind those of their clients or customers. Hiding in plain sight, even the writers themselves made it look like a bad thing for a citizen to be delivering someone else’s words. Despite the evident

Economics and Work: Piracy and Banditry

need for their craft, the expectations of society, and especially of juries, were still that such professional careers in rhetoric be treated as an “open secret.” See also: Arts: Philosophy, Platonic; Rhetoric; Sophists; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Assemblies; Civil War; Democracies; Justice and Punishment; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Science and Technology: Education; Primary Documents: Aeschines on Foreign Negotiation and Domestic Mud-Slinging (343 BCE) FURTHER READING Bonner, S. 1977. Education in Ancient Rome. London: Methuen. Edwards, M. 2007. Isaeus. Austin: University of Texas Press. Gagarin, M. 2002. Antiphon the Athenian. Austin: University of Texas Press. Habinek, T. 2005. Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory. Oxford: Blackwell. Harris, E. M. 1995. Aeschines and Athenian Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kennedy, G. 1963. The Art of Persuasion in Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kennedy, G. 1994. A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. MacDowell, D. M., ed. 1962. Andocides: On the Mysteries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Poulakos, T., and D. J. Depew, eds. 2004. Isocrates and Civic Education. Austin: University of Texas Press. Russell, D. A. 1993. Greek Declamation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sealey, R. 1993. Demosthenes and His Time: A Study in Defeat. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Usher, S. 1999. Greek Oratory: Tradition and Originality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vickers, B. 1988. In Defence of Rhetoric. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Worthington, I., ed. 1994. Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action. London and New York: Routledge. Worthington, I., ed. 2000. Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator. London and New York: Routledge.

PHARMACOLOGY. See APOTHECARIES/PHARMACOLOGY PIRACY AND BANDITRY The ancient Greeks knew all about pirates (called variously peiratai, le¯iste¯res, le¯istai) and bandits (also called le¯iste¯res or le¯istai, as well as hodouroi, kixalle¯is,

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loˉpodute¯is), persons who made their living primarily by seizing and plundering the possessions of others, either by sea or by land. The distinction between such “professions” and legitimate behavior in trade and wartime was not always clear, and many who were labeled pirates or bandits lived in such difficult or troubled circumstances that they, in fact, had few options to do anything else. What’s more, the elimination of piracy and banditry required not just the defeat or capture of “criminal” individuals, which constituted local successes, but also the conquest of the territories such individuals used as bases of operation; the former came easier in the Greek world than the latter, especially considering the abundance of good spots to hide in the Greek region and the number of people who were willing to harbor fugitive bandits or pirates. Hence, for most of Greek history, there always seemed to be somewhere else from where pirates or bandits could pop up, despite every successful effort in “suppressing” piratical raids or brigandage. Anyone familiar with Homer’s Odyssey will recall the typical questions asked of strangers, especially those who have come by sea: Have you come on business as a merchant does or are you a wandering pirate set on causing trouble? Apparently, in Homer’s society, listeners to his story would not have regarded it as strange to ask a potential criminal to admit his criminality. Clearly, his characters, in asking such a question, were looking to protect themselves against potentially dangerous individuals, but they also must not have seen piracy as something to deny. Perhaps this should not surprise us because, after all, the Homeric heroes frequently behave like pirates in terms of their actions, even when they claim not to be pirates. Piratical raiding seems to have been fairly common in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1300–1100 BCE), in the so-called Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE) and even into the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE). Trade and piracy, as well as warfare and piracy, went hand-in-hand as two sides of the same coin; what one could not acquire by open commerce, one might attempt to grab through raiding, and what one’s forces could not achieve through military victory, they might bring about through piratical attacks on settlements and shipping. Consider how the historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus attempted to explain the long-standing animosities between the Greeks and the peoples of the Ancient Near East that climaxed in the Persian Wars; he said that it all went back to raiding, especially to stealing one another’s women as prizes or as slaves, and he treats that as a commonplace occurrence. The Athenian historian Thucydides agreed with Herodotus on the prevalence of piracy in prior generations of Greek history. He argued that the rise of maritime powers, like the thalassocracy (sea empire) he claimed had existed on the island of Crete, was the deciding factor in the serious reduction of piracy in the Greek world; certainly, in his own time, he could see that the Athenian Empire or Delian

Economics and Work: Piracy and Banditry

League (known as “Athens and its allies”), with its substantial fleet of warships, had cleaned up the sea-lanes and made raiding by sea quite difficult. Thus, the Classical Age (490–323 BCE) witnessed within the Greek mindset a separation between piracy, on the one hand, and trade, on the other. To disentangle piracy from warfare proved more difficult. The Athenian historian Xenophon makes note of this, as do various Athenian orators of the fourth century BCE; the latter especially expressed concerns about the mutual raiding carried on by Athenians and Macedonians in the period of increasing tensions between Athens and King Philip II of Macedon. In other words, when their forces were not engaged in actual fighting, they were behaving like pirates toward one another. Moreover, long-standing Greek custom continued to permit those who had been despoiled in war to help themselves by seizing the property or goods of individuals who belonged to the enemy side. This tradition of syle¯ continued right through Classical times and into the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE); the danger of it was always the plundering or harming of innocent individuals simply because of their affiliation, often presumed more than real, with one’s opponents. This was a sort of legitimized piracy, the only protections against it being effective military defense or exchanges of treaties and governmental decrees of asylia, which pledged that a state and its citizens would not engage in such seizure with respect to particular persons or communities. When Athens lost its empire near the end of the fifth century BCE, all trade deflated in the Aegean region and piracy rose because of the absence of the protection of the Delian League fleet. A bouncing-back in trade and in the movement of people across the sea by the middle of the fourth century BCE also spurred a rise in piracy, as pirates then had more to raid. Similarly, Hellenistic times witnessed an increase in piracy, as privateers took advantage of the frequent, distracting wars among the Greek kingdoms to prey upon coastal settlements, especially in the Aegean and along the south coast of Asia Minor, but across the eastern Mediterranean generally. Hellenistic pirates engaged in looting and kidnapping for ransom or enslavement. The island state of Rhodes, as well as the Seleucid Kingdom of Syria and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, invested effort and money in the suppression of piracy in their regions and the erection of land defenses in key areas against piratical raids; the Rhodians especially developed the most powerful navy of the times and employed it to remove pirate ships (akatia, myoparoˉnoi, hemioliai) from the seas. The Cretans proved to be their major adversary in this regard, many of whom, driven by severe socioeconomic troubles at home, had turned to piracy to survive, especially in the late third century and the middle of the second century BCE. The Roman Republic exacerbated the situation. Having had a falling-out with the Rhodians over strategic issues, the Roman government maneuvered to wreck

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the Rhodian economy, which in turn put their fleet virtually out of commission, and piracy quickly bounced back, not only among the Cretans but also among the Cilicians operating out of the coves of southern Asia Minor and the Illyrians operating from the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea. Leaders of the Roman Republic soon discovered the long-term, negative consequences of their actions, and a number of them had to turn their military efforts to suppressing piracy again in the eastern Mediterranean. Not until the Roman Emperors created a permanent fleet in the Mediterranean, however, did piracy truly come under control. A problem akin to piracy, and particularly in the fourth century BCE and later, was brigandage or banditry, known as le¯isteia or loˉpodusia in ancient Greek. Like piracy, le¯isteia had a long history among the acceptable customs of the ancient Greeks, going back to the days before the poleis, when it would have been regarded as not entirely illegal. Before the development of strong poleis with sufficiently intimidating military forces and effective laws, banditry seems to have been quite widespread. Again like piracy, even in Classical and Hellenistic times, there were places in the Greek world, especially locales in higher elevations far from urban centers and essentially beyond the reach of military forces, where living by the pillaging of others was still considered a badge of honor. According to Thucydides, for example, the people of Acharnania, Aetolia, and West Locris in his day respected successful bandits. Centuries later, the Achaean historian Polybius would claim that the Aetolian League, a confederation of central Greek states, actually protected brigandage, as well as piracy, regarding raiding as a national trait! Of course, Polybius may have exaggerated this because of his hostility toward the Aetolians, who had become enemies of his people, but there still seem to have been some bits of truth in his claim. The account of Polybius reminds us that in studying piracy and banditry in the ancient Greek world, one must be cautious with the sources. Some authors and governments employed the term “pirate” or “bandit” simply as a convenient label against their enemies at home or abroad, just as modern politicians or the media might throw around the term “terrorist.” Work to recover the truth about ancient piracy and banditry from the tangle of realities and exaggerations thus continues. See also: Arts: History; Poetry, Epic; Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets; Orators and Speechwriters; Slavery, Private; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Trade; Travel; Housing and Community: Fortifications; Infrastructure; Politics and Warfare: City-States; Leagues/Alliances; Navies; Religion and Beliefs: Asylum; Science and Technology: Ships/Shipbuilding FURTHER READING De Souza, P. 1999. Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Economics and Work: Pottery-Making Ormerod, H. A. 1997. Piracy in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rauh, N. 2003. Merchants, Sailors and Pirates in the Roman World. Stroud, U.K.: Tempus. Rigsby, K. 1995. Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

POTTERY-MAKING Apparently, the best clay (keramos) in the Greek world of ancient times came from the islands and promontories along the southwestern coast of Turkey and from a swathe of the southeastern mainland of Greece stretching from Laconia in the south up through Corinthia and Attica to the island of Euboea in the north; a tremendous amount of reddish clay, for example, the most highly prized in antiquity, was harvested from the Kolias promontory of Attica. Pottery manufactured in these places, especially in Corinth and Athens, spread along the trade routes of the entire Mediterranean world, not only to Greek customers but also to eager buyers among Etruscans, Romans, and other non-Greek populations. Greek potters (kerameis, sing. kerameus) utilized the potter’s wheel (trochos), likely invented in Mesopotamia millennia before, to help them form wet clay into various desired shapes. The Greek potter’s wheel was a modified version, however; its turntable was still rotated by hand (usually by the potter’s assistant) but no longer close to ground level, instead being raised a foot or foot-and-a-half above the ground, which made molding the clay much easier for a potter seated comfortably on a chair. By the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), Greeks had developed a flywheel mechanism attached to the potter’s wheel, which allowed the potter himself to move his turntable by kicking motion, his hands free to work the clay. In the case of smaller objects, such as handheld drinking cups, the potter would have molded the entire thing while working the wheel; in the case of larger objects, such as amphorae, the piece would be completed in separate stages. For instance, in forming a large mixing bowl or krate¯r, a potter would mold the bowl separately from its base and handles, forming and attaching them after the main section had been completed. Once shaped, an object would be air-dried and then placed on the wheel again, when the potter would scrape and shave it into perfectly smoothed form while rotating it. Potters also developed slips and glazes (using clay, silica, or other natural materials liquefied and often alkalized with ash, then decanted to refine) and applied them to the surface of an object they had finished on the wheel. Once covered with a slip or glaze, the object would then be placed inside a special oven for baking, which would dry and harden the clay and fuse the slip or glaze to its surface.

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Such pottery ovens or kilns (kaminoi), as judged from surviving descriptions and artistic depictions, came in several types. In one example, the cylindrical base of the oven contained the heat source, a burning wood fire; atop this base stood a bullet-shaped chamber, sealed by a hatch-like door, in which the potter would place the pottery he wished to fire. In another example, the potter’s oven resembled those still used today by household bakers in many small towns and villages of the Mediterranean region; the oven sat on the floor in the shape of a large flattened mound, opened by a hatch-like door. It functioned the way we would expect in a wood-burning oven of a high-end pizza shop today; in the rear portion of the oven burned the potter’s fire, and in the forward portion the fresh pottery was placed. Potters performed multiple firings depending on the sort of result they sought; for instance, they might fire a piece in a closed kiln at close to 1000°C (over 1800°F) in order to blacken the pottery surface, then allow the oven to cool down to 800°C ( just below 1500°F) by opening the air vents, which would cause oxidization of the surface areas not covered by slip. Potters then used sticks, similar to chopsticks, or tongs to remove the baked product from the oven for complete cooling. Much of the earliest Greek pottery, from the Mycenaean through the Orien­ talizing style (that is, roughly 1400–800 BCE), betrays the influence of cultures in the Ancient Near East not only in terms of artistic decoration but also in form and technique utilized by the potter. The Black Figure and Red Figure pottery of the succeeding centuries developed those older methods in new directions. Pitchers, containers, goblets now had taller and more ornate bases, requiring more time and greater precision to mold on the wheel; some approached a very delicate slenderness. In more cases, their graceful, fluid handles extended further outward or upward, curling and curving, sometimes serpentine in design, sometimes ending in the shape of complex faces of humans or mythical creatures or even in the heads of animals (like swans). The influence of contemporary architectural techniques seems apparent; just as Greek sculptors formed temple columns and architraves out of complex concentric pieces and included intricate designs (such as the eggand-dart pattern), so did Greek potters form mixing bowls, for instance, with similar features. They even experimented with molding pitchers or cups partially in the shape of human heads and drinking horns in the shape of serpents, wolves, stags, and other animals. Greek potters perfected something close to four dozen different styles of ceramic ware, as we judge from the examples known to us. Storage vessels ranged in size from huge pithoi (onion-shaped containers, some examples of which could hold up to one hundred amphorae of liquid) through the ubiquitous two-handled amphorae (onion-shaped, lozenge-shaped, or pear-shaped) and three-handled hydriae (large, plump-looking water jugs) to the single-handled lekythoi and handheld alabastra (both lozenge-shaped). Very common in the serving of liquids were

Economics and Work: Pottery-Making

the single-handled oenochoe (resembling most closely modern-day pitchers) and the mixing bowl or krate¯r (shaped like a large upside-down bell), and for drinking there were the kotyle¯ (two-handled and shaped like a modern fondue pot), the kylix (a broad-brimmed goblet), and the kantharos (a goblet resembling a short flower vase). Of course, potters also would have manufactured many other items found in ancient Greek kitchens and dining rooms. The vast majority of Greek potters remain anonymous figures for us. Of the hundreds of potters whose names we do know (thanks to the inscriptions and trademarks they placed on their work), all are male; whether there were any female potters at all among the Greeks remains a mystery, but it does not seem likely that there were. Potters owned their shops; evidence suggests that these were small establishments, operated by a master potter and typically not more than four apprentices. In Athens, perhaps two hundred such pottery makers produced all the ceramic wares of the city at any given time, whether elegant vases, practical storage containers, or roof tiles. Larger pottery “factories” already existed there as early as the sixth century BCE, like that owned by Nicosthenes, who carried on brisk business with Etruscan and other customers in Italy. Indeed, after the Peloponnesian War, many potters left Athens to live and work in southern Italy. The person who made a piece of pottery was not necessarily the same person who painted its designs, but sometimes that was the case, as in the first recorded signature on a piece of Greek pottery, that of Sophilus c. 570 BCE, who was both artist and potter. We should assume that in most instances, if the potter was not also simultaneously the painter of his work, the artist and potter must have worked closely together, in tandem. In some cases, it is true that designs in various colored paints could be put on the piece of pottery after it had been completed by the potter, but in many other cases, glazes and glosses or varnishes of different colors, as well as certain paints and details done through incision, had to be applied in careful stages during the firing process, which would have demanded cooperation throughout by artist and pottery maker. Potters in the Greek world were undoubtedly some of that culture’s most skilled craftsmen, requiring years of practice under master artisans. They tended to congregate in certain sections of the city in which they lived; most famously, the potters in Athens worked in the Kerameikos district, located in the northwest of the city and named for Keramos, son of Dionysus and Ariadne, mythical creator of the potter’s craft (and also the Greek word for clay). Hence, derives our modern word “ceramics.” See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Food and Drink: Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils; Meals; Wine; Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings; Recreation and Social Customs: Panathenaia

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RETIREMENT The concept of retirement is a relatively new one, relevant primarily to the second half of the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first century. Retirement, to the modern mind, implies completing one’s working career and embarking on a period of leisure for the rest of one’s life, made possible by government subsidies, workplace pensions, personal savings, and so on, as well as sufficient medical care. The ancient Greeks did not share the same concept. The vast majority of people in the ancient Greek world, those who labored for a living like farmers, merchants, artisans, midwives, and so on, did not choose to stop working but stopped working because they were no longer capable of working. People intended to work until their deaths because most had to do so in order to provide for their daily necessities and those of their families. Certainly, few of them would have seriously contemplated any such idea as “early retirement.” There existed no financial planning for one’s later years. Most individuals worked for themselves; very few would have accumulated any sort of substantial savings by the time they reached old age. They might own a house and land, but they would not have sold it to pay for senior expenses because then they would have had no place to live; the ancient Greeks did not have retirement homes for their elderly. Besides, law and custom in many communities, such as Athens, insisted that houses and land be passed on intact to the next generation. As for those who labored for someone else, they never would have earned enough pay to fund a retirement pension of some sort, even if such financial instruments had existed in those days, and they did not. Moreover, ancient Greek employers felt no need at all to assist their workers in having a stable financial future by putting away a portion of their earnings for retirement purposes. So the ancient Greek “retirement plan” consisted in depending on the support of family members when one was no longer fit to provide for oneself. Greek communities enforced laws against the neglect or abuse of retired elders, but did not create any state agencies for the care of the latter. An exception was that some Greek communities provided subsidies for the disabled, whether elderly or not; in Athens, for instance, this meant receiving one obol per day from the Athenian treasury, certainly not enough to survive on, let alone retire on. Hence, the

Economics and Work: Retirement

regulations in Athens that sons or daughters, whether natural or adopted, take care of their parents in old age. The Athenian population in the second half of the fifth century BCE seems to have had an unusual number of senior citizens (somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the total number of citizens), usually defined by the ancient Greeks as men and women age sixty and over. The Athenians shared with other Greek communities the tradition of handing over property to one’s sons as each reached the age of thirty. This permitted the sons to marry and begin households of their own and left parents, like the inherited property itself, under the management of those sons; daughters and their husbands assumed that role in the absence of sons. There existed in many ancient Greek communities another sort of retirement, what one might call retirement from civic life, imposed by state regulations and customs. In Athens, for instance, once a male citizen reached the age of sixty, he was exempt from compulsory duties to the city-state, such as military service. He could still join other elderly men as a reserve guardsman, attend and vote in the democratic assembly, serve on juries in the law courts, or represent his country as a diplomatic envoy, but he no longer had to do any of those things. One should recall here the case of the philosopher Socrates; he chose to participate actively in the government of Athens as a member of the Council of 500, even at the age of sixty-three. Greek history records other “retirement age” individuals continuing to lead active lives in “second careers” as nannies or pedagogues (trainers of children), as priests or priestesses, and particularly as philosophers! Indeed, in a number of Greek communities, men over the age of sixty were specifically sought out for their wisdom and experience to serve on government councils, like the Athenian Areopagus or the Spartan gerousia, or as arbitrators in legal disputes. Still, once a man or a woman reached that “ineffectual” period of life, as the historian Thucydides put it, when they were no longer working or raising children, their contributions to society were not regarded as essential; they were not quite full citizens anymore, as the philosopher Aristotle noted. The latter’s mentor Plato, who lived to the ripe old age of eighty, may have thought that seventy was a good age at which to “feed on philosophy” in one’s retirement from civic life, but comedians like his contemporary Aristophanes lampooned the elderly for their foolishness and senility and often urged them into retiring, especially from civic duties. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sophists; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Carpentry; Landownership; Masonry; Metalworking; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Orators and Speechwriters; Pottery-Making;

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Family and Gender: Adoption; Grandparents; Inheritance; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Councils; Diplomacy; Hoplite Soldiers; Justice and Punishment; Public Officials; Recreation and Social Customs: Leisure Activities FURTHER READING Falkner, T. M., and J. de Luce, eds. 1989. Old Age in Greek and Latin Literature. Albany: State University of New York Press. Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Johnson, P., and P. Thane, eds. 1998. Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity. London and New York: Routledge.

SLAVERY, PRIVATE All across their world, the ancient Greeks owned slaves, going back at least to Mycenaean times (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE); the Linear B tablets from the Bronze Age attest to a practice still common among the Greek states many centuries later: wholesale enslavement of women and children captured in warfare. Most slaves in the Greek world were, in fact, simply victims of circumstance, on the losing side in international conflicts; only the philosopher Aristotle ascribed slavery to nature, claiming that certain populations were naturally fit to be enslaved, a notion that never caught on among the Greeks. The experience of slavery differed widely across ancient Greece; one experience was that of private enslavement and the best evidence for it comes from ancient Athens. The Athenians, though a democratic society, were not necessarily that much better when it came to enslaving their fellow human beings. Indeed, they began by literally enslaving their fellow men, fellow Athenians. Before the significant reforms of the lawgiver Solon in the early sixth century BCE, it was legal for one Athenian to enslave another as punishment for failing to pay one’s debts. Such debt slavery (usually associated with the Athenian term hekte¯moroi) resulted in the enslaved person losing his or her property, including land, to the creditor, as well as losing control over him or herself; the debtor became the creditor’s slave for an extended period in order, ostensibly, to pay back the debt. Outstanding debts had become so great by Solon’s time, that is, so many Athenians had fallen into debt enslavement, that the leaders of Athens feared a violent uprising on the part of the hekte¯moroi. Solon addressed the crisis by simply canceling the outstanding debts and abolishing the legal option of enslaving someone for reasons of debt. This was his famous seisachtheia, “shaking off of burdens.” Although apparently a terrific thing for the enslaved Athenians, Solon’s prohibition against enslaving one’s fellow citizens did not curb anyone from enslaving outsiders. Chattel slavery increased dramatically after Solon’s reform, as

Economics and Work: Slavery, Private

the Athenians brought in large numbers of slaves from the rest of Greece and from beyond the Greek world (especially what we would today call Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and westcentral Turkey). Many were prisoners of war captured by Athenian forces. The offspring of slave mothers, victims of kidnapping by pirates, and abandoned children (often exposed infants) acquired by slave dealers added to the slave population. Such slaves were often purchased in the slave markets of the Greek world—every large city-state had one; the costs varied according to the origin and especially the skill set of the slave (anywhere from 140 to 360 drachmas in Athens, for example, the equivalent in our world of Marble grave marker, or stele, depicting a young buying an economical car). Athenian man named Sostratos with a slave boy, Although many commer- c. 375–350 BCE. The slave attends to Sostratos, who cially minded city-states, like appears in the guise of an athlete about to clean himself after exercise, ready with a small flask of Corinth and Aegina, had large rubbing oil and holding his master’s clothes slung numbers of slaves, among these over his shoulder. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ none had as many as Athens. Rogers Fund, 1908) Scholars estimate that in the middle of the fifth century BCE, when Athenian power and prosperity were at their height, between one-third and two-thirds of the population in Attica were slaves. Not surprisingly, members of the wealthiest families (the top four thousand or so by modern estimates) owned most of the slaves in the Athenian territory, in numbers ranging from three hundred to six hundred for each family; often these were slave craftsmen whose productivity for their masters, or for others to whom they were rented, brought great profits. Slaves were valuable investments, the return on their labor, if hired out, bringing in more revenue than lending cash in those days. The Athenian general Nicias famously owned some 1,000 slaves, whom he rented out to various silver mine owners in Attica. The orator Lysias and his brother Polemarchus inherited a shield factory worked by over one hundred slaves, while

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the orator Demosthenes inherited some fifty slaves in the sword-making business and bed-manufacturing trade. Although most peasant farmers in Attica were likely too poor to afford slaves, still perhaps one-fourth of the entire citizen population owned at least one slave, with twenty or thirty slaves not at all unusual (especially in a manufacturing shop). Most Athenian slaves worked as shepherds, craftsmen, and especially domestic servants. Even lower-class Athenians liked to have servants if they could afford them. We know of millers, bakers, and cloak makers who lived quite well off the profits made by their slave workforces. Many Athenians in their old age chose to purchase a slave to pick up the slack of working so that they themselves could take it easier and live off the revenues generated by their slave. Such slaves generally had it much better than the perhaps thirty thousand who toiled long hours in the silver mines that brought such wealth and leverage to entrepreneurs. Thousands of others, female and male, endured the humiliation of serving the sexual desires of their masters and their customers. In a society that prided itself on the value of individual freedom, those who were not free held a very clear status of inferiority. Escape was not an easy option for slaves in most city-states, including Athens, because the city-states cooperated with one another in the tracking down of runaway slaves. There was literally nowhere to run to, no community that would defend a slave’s right to escape, except during time of war. In that event, a citystate’s enemies might welcome runaway slaves, like the twenty thousand slaves from Athens that fled to Spartan protection in the last phase of the Peloponnesian War (when the Spartans established a base in Athenian territory). Yet there were opportunities even for slaves in places like Athens, including legal avenues, of escape from slavery. Many Athenians paid their slaves an allowance; slaves hired out under contract to other employers typically received wages at the same rates as free workers (like the sculptors on the Erechtheum project of the Acropolis, all paid one drachma per day regardless of status) and could keep about one-sixth for themselves (out of which they might have to pay for their own food and clothes), the rest going to their owner. Slave craftsmen may have drawn their materials and tools from their master, but they were also given the responsibility of selling their own products, and the freedom of setting their own prices (hoping to get the highest price possible so as to keep a good share for themselves). Those who received allowances or wages rented housing in which to live and bought companions with whom to share their lives. Slaves frequently tried to save up enough money to eventually purchase their own freedom; when they did, the Athenian government granted them the status of metic, resident alien, with certain protections under the law. Slaves and freedmen metics seem to have had the same goals as citizens, to become stable and responsible

Economics and Work: Slavery, Private

contributors to, and beneficiaries of, Athenian prosperity and even to invest in slaves themselves. Loyal slaves might also win their freedom, like those freed and armed as mercenaries by vote of the Athenian people in the emergency conditions of the Peloponnesian War (and even granted citizenship in the case of those who fought in the Battle of Arginusae in 406 BCE) or like the former slave Pasion, who became a rich banker in the footsteps of his old masters and himself owned perhaps sixty slaves who worked in his shield factory. Indeed, Athenian leaders in the late fifth century BCE proposed the emancipation of all slaves who had shown their patriotic devotion to Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and in the late fourth century BCE, some proposed to free all slaves in Attica as part of the resistance force against the Macedonian menace. Both proposals received approval from Athenian voters at first, but were quickly rescinded afterward, revealing the continued distinctions between slave and free that Athenian citizens chose to perpetuate. Most Greek communities passed laws that protected slaves from serious mistreatment; slaves could be tortured under the law, for instance, in order for their testimony to be admissible in court, but murder of a slave was considered just as grave a “pollution” of society as the murder of any free person. On the island of Crete, the city-state of Gortyn allowed slaves to own their own property, gave them various recourses under the law, and recognized slave marriages as perfectly legal, even recognizing the children of a male slave and a free woman as free persons. Indeed, in most places, slaves would have been hard to distinguish from free persons: they did every kind of job—servant, clerk, miner, farmer, even hoplite— that free persons did; slaves were generally paid the same sorts of wages and wore the same sorts of clothing as common citizens. An Athenian author known to us as the Old Oligarch indeed reports on the insolent attitude typical of slaves there, and the philosopher Plato mocked Athens and all democracies because there even slaves think of themselves as free. Various prejudices may have colored the treatment of slaves, such as the Athenian prejudice against all Phrygians (whom they enslaved in large numbers) as a cowardly people, but slavery was so common and so expected in their world that Greek sources do not typically record complaints about slaves stealing jobs from or undercutting the sales of free workers, prejudices many modern people might expect to see. Furthermore, so many Greeks developed affection for the slave domestics (nurses and pedagogues) who raised them that they had no hesitation in dedicating loving tributes on grave markers for such slaves. Indeed, given the possibility of upward mobility for slaves in many communities and the inculcation into them of certain social values that mitigated revolt, slavery became a long-enduring institution in the Greek world, supported even by many slaves themselves.

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See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Carpentry; Cloth-Making; Debt; Masonry; Metalworking; Midwives and Wet-Nurses; Mining; Piracy and Banditry; Slavery, Public; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Entertainers, Popular; Prostitutes and Courtesans FURTHER READING Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. New York: Arno Press. Finley, M. I. 1983. Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology. New York: Penguin. Garlan, Y. 1988. Slavery in Ancient Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Katsari, C., and E. Dal Lago, eds. 2008. Slaves Systems: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SLAVERY, PUBLIC All across their world, the ancient Greeks owned slaves, but the experience of slavery differed widely. One of those experiences was to be owned by an entire community as a public slave. Even democratic Athens engaged in the mass enslavement of other populations, like the “rebels” at Scione (421 BCE) and the “resistant” at Melos (416 BCE), killing all the men and enslaving the rest of the local citizens. The Athenian state sold off most of its prisoners of war as private slaves, but it did also profit from such conquests by appropriating large numbers of prisoners as public slaves. Furthermore, it frequently purchased public slaves on the open market of the Greek world. Hundreds of public slaves labored in the Athenian mint, kept the official records, and even tended the state prison. Twelve hundred slave archers from Scythia (mod. Ukraine) served as the police force of Athens; thousands of slaves served on board the Athenian fleet in the crucial capacity of rowers; some six thousand state slaves brought great profits as workers in the silver mining industry, which largely funded the fleet. Many other Greek city-states, like Syracuse and Corinth, owned public slaves and utilized their labor as Athens did. A different form of public slavery, however, was practiced in northern Greece. There, the Thessalians conquered the non-Greek population that lived in the region before their own settlement and forced the latter to work on the large estates that the Thessalian nobles carved out for themselves;

Economics and Work: Slavery, Public

Thessalian nobles owned much more land than their counterparts in other regions of Greece and operated very independently, largely thanks to the servile labor of these penestai, who, though they had certain rights to their possessions, could not ever leave the land to which they were assigned. In their competitions among themselves, however, the Thessalian aristocrats often raised large forces of armed cavalry from the penestai most loyal to them individually; such “public” slaves provided “cannon fodder,” as it were, for internecine strife among the Thessalians. The Spartans developed perhaps the most peculiar form of public enslavement. During the seventh and eighth centuries BCE, their population increased dramatically, requiring more sources of food supply to support it. The Spartans responded to this, in part, by conquering the neighboring peoples in the region of Laconia and expelling them from much of their land, seizing especially the best agricultural land for farming and resettlement of Spartan citizens. This proved insufficient, however, in the face of their continuing land hunger. So, they waged a long series of wars across the western mountains into Messenia, eventually confiscating the sizable alluvial plain of Messene; the Spartans distributed this fertile land equally among their adult males and they did the same with the conquered inhabitants. In this way, they reduced the entire Messenian population, fellow Greeks (though some have suggested they were a pre-Greek population), to perpetual slavery. The slaves, known as heiloˉtes or helots, belonged to Sparta as a whole and thus were state slaves; they were assigned to work the land of their new masters. Helots retained some minimal rights to property and family but were always suppressed by the Spartans. To remind them of their inferior status and vulnerability, the Spartans formally declared war against all the helots every year. In addition, young Spartan males, as part of the krypteia (the initiation into manhood and full citizenship), had the privilege and the obligation of murdering helots by stealth, usually those who were regarded as posing some sort of threat to the established order of conquerors and conquered. The psychological warfare engaged in by the Spartans against the Messenians to keep them down and downtrodden produced bitter results. Not surprisingly, the helots dreamed of eating their masters raw, to use the words of the pro-Spartan historian Xenophon of Athens, and they found every opportunity to rise up (even during the famous earthquake of 464 BCE, which rocked the Spartan territory). Sparta’s rivals in the Peloponnese, the Argives and the Arcadians, made efforts to assist the Messenians in their early wars of independence, though these failed. A Spartan king named Demaratus even made use of the helots by raising a revolt among them in 491 BCE as part of his retaliation against his rival, Cleomenes, though this was also defeated. Helots contributed at least half of their produce to the Spartan state, a major factor in its success, and the Spartans did sometimes show a greater appreciation

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for the helots as men, especially during times of severe military crisis. Thus, the Spartan regent Pausanias included thirty-five thousand helots as light-armed troops in the Greek campaign against the Persians at Plataea in 479 BCE, and the Spartan general Brasidas led a force of freed helots (so-called neodamodeis, semi-citizens) in his capture of the Athenian forces at Amphipolis in 424 BCE. In truth, Spartan power rested a lot on helot support, and even on helot apathy. Despite such joint ventures between Spartans and those Messenians who received some citizenship rights in exchange for their loyalty to the city-state, most helots continued to seek freedom from Spartan oppression and terror. They achieved this during the struggle for power between Sparta and the city-state of Thebes. The latter’s forces followed up their victory over the Spartans in the Battle of Leuctra in 372 BCE first with a direct assault on Laconian territory and then penetrated Messenia as well and liberated the helots from Spartan control in 370 BCE. The neodamodeis rushed to the defense of Sparta, but the vast majority of the Messenians rearmed themselves with Theban aid to guarantee their independence from Sparta. The end of helot enslavement meant the decline of Sparta as a regional power and led to serious economic and social restructuring; the community of Spartan Equals could not continue prosperously as it had for centuries without the enforced labor of the thousands of helots. Surprisingly, the Messenians showed remarkable restraint toward their former oppressors; they did not brutalize the Spartans as they had been brutalized. Relatively few Greek states engaged in the sort of helotage the Spartans and Thessalians maintained. The military occupation and psychological control of such large populations were beyond the capability of most states and considered too costly. See also: Arts: History; Philosophy, Aristotle; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Cloth-Making; Landownership; Metalworking; Slavery, Private; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Viticulture; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status FURTHER READING Cartledge, P. 1979. Sparta and Lakonia. London and New York: Routledge. Cartledge, P. 2003. The Spartans. New York: Random House/Vintage Press. Finley, M. I. 1983. Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology. New York: Penguin. Forrest, W. G. 1968. A History of Sparta: 950–192 BC. New York: W.W. Norton. Garlan, Y. 1988. Slavery in Ancient Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Katsari, C., and E. Dal Lago, eds. 2008. Slaves Systems: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Economics and Work: Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era

SOCIAL REVOLUTION, HELLENISTIC ERA In the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, the hegemonic wars of the fourth century BCE, and the wars among Alexander the Great’s successors, Greece became a backwater. Its territory had been devastated by generations of conflict and its inhabitants were burdened by a declining economy and, in many places, declining population. Desperate and fearful, many Greeks became eager for some sort of socioeconomic upheaval to produce much-needed change. Their ancestors certainly had experienced civil strife and class struggle (typically in combination) in previous eras, but never before did the need for social revolution, in the sense of a very thorough rearranging of the means of production and the levers of political power, seem so clear. For just that reason, the various successors of Alexander the Great attempted to keep in place the League of Corinth (as scholars refer to it) that had been created by Alexander’s father, Philip II of Macedon. This “Hellenic Alliance” had among its various purposes that of preventing changes to the political, social, and economic status quo within the Greek city-states that belonged to it; the Macedonians had recognized even in the late fourth century the continuing dangers to their hegemony posed by any such internal commotions. Naturally, those who knew they would benefit from the protection of their current, positive circumstances enthusiastically supported the League of Corinth, while those who knew that it would mean no improvement in their already-deteriorating circumstances regarded the pro-Macedonian governments, as well as the Macedonian garrisons stationed in key parts of Greece, as a direct threat to their future well-being. Sparta, perhaps quite surprisingly to those students familiar with its earlier history, became an epicenter for resistance and revolution in Hellenistic times. It had been in social and economic decline since its wars with Thebes had cost its foundation of slave labor and its military hegemony. The citizen population had decreased, while poverty and indebtedness had generally increased; the traditional customs, especially the agoˉge¯ or training, of Spartan men, had lapsed. Indeed, by the third century BCE, a very small percentage of the male population were qualified any longer to serve in the Spartan armed forces and to participate in the political system, while male deaths and inheritance customs had left much Spartan property in the hands of women, who were neither allowed to serve nor participate. Then, one of the third-century kings, Agis IV (r. 244–241 BCE), proposed the cancellation of all outstanding debts (especially mortgages) and the redistribution of land to thousands of Spartan men, as well as to thousands of perioikoi (Sparta’s neighbors who used to fight side-by-side with the Spartan army), and even to resident aliens; Agis dreamed of his country’s lost glories and sought to create a new generation of Spartan warriors through a renewed, but much updated, agoˉge¯.

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To counter opposition from the start, Agis turned to pressure tactics: he had already impeached and exiled his co-king Leonidas II and deposed a number of ephors (the high-ranking overseers of Spartan society). Then he set a good example to others by donating his own fortune to the cause of socioeconomic reconstruction. In other words, a member of the Spartan elite, a king no less, had made himself champion of the Spartan poor and landless and had turned against his own class, not for the sake of his own power but to promote a massive agenda of socioeconomic change for the vast majority of the populace and for the city-state as a whole. His radical reforms were contrary to the regulations that tens of thousands of Greeks had agreed to as members of the League of Corinth. Besides, other prominent Spartans would not tolerate this, those who did not wish to see as much change, nor as revolutionary, as Agis was clearly engaged in. They supported Leonidas II in his counterrevolution against Agis, which ended with the latter’s capture and execution by means of strangulation. Moreover, Leonidas ordered the execution of his enemy’s chief supporters, Agesistrata and Archidamia, respectively, the mother and grandmother of Agis, who had also provided their sizable fortunes for his efforts at remaking the Spartan economy. As an even clearer deterrent against such radical societal change, Leonidas hanged all their bodies out in public view. This “remedy” to Sparta’s ills only made its society more unstable. To soothe the public upset, Leonidas instructed his son, Cleomenes, to marry Agiatis, the widow of Agis. This “remedy,” too, backfired on the king, for his son not only fell in love with her but also with her romantic image of her deceased husband and the latter’s mission to reform Sparta. After his father’s passing, and only a few years into his own reign as king, Cleomenes III (r. 235–222 BCE) reinstituted the reforms of Agis, murdering four ephors who opposed him, and exiling many prominent citizens who resisted change or the necessity of contributing financially to the cause of revolution (229 BCE). He went further by freeing and granting citizenship to former slaves (though this was, in part, to enhance his military reforms). His efforts indeed revived the Spartan economy and the new agoˉge¯ strengthened Sparta militarily against its rivals, especially the Achaean League. Further, many of the latter’s member towns, especially in the Argolid and Arcadia, as they suffered from similar socioeconomic troubles as the Spartans seemed to have overcome, broke ranks to join the “movement” that Cleomenes had begun. In other words, he had become a model to other social reformers, an inspiration for social revolution in other Greek communities. A number of city-states in southern and central Greece reacted with horror at the thought of a renewed Spartan power in their midst, just as their elites did at the idea of social revolution spreading and upsetting the status quo. The new Sparta was, in fact, aggressive and expansionist; its enemies formed a coalition to crush Sparta before it could expand too far. With the help of the Macedonians,

Economics and Work: Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era

the Achaeans, Aetolians, Boeotians, and Thessalians ganged up on Sparta; in 222 BCE, they engaged the forces under Spartan leadership in a vigorous battle at Sellasia, about six miles north of Sparta. The overwhelmed Spartans suffered a crushing defeat. Cleomenes, though, escaped across the sea to Egypt for safety. There, he discovered the oppressive government of his erstwhile ally, King Ptolemy III; when the latter passed away within the year, Cleomenes attempted to stir up a social revolution against the new king, Ptolemy IV. This failed and Cleomenes committed suicide (219 BCE). Some of the revolutionary tactics and purposes of Agis and Cleomenes were picked up by a later Spartan king, Nabis (r. c. 207–192 BCE). Facing similar opponents, foreign and domestic, he nonetheless forcefully pursued a course of expanding citizenship to non-Spartans, freeing many slaves, as well as confiscating and redistributing property from the rich to the poor. He virtually swept away the old caste system of Sparta, while also promoting crafts and trade, and intervening in banking, in order to promote prosperity for more than just the few. More worrisome to neighboring powers was how he did the same when he acquired control of Argos, even implementing a cancellation of debts there. Stopped by the Romans, the new enforcers of the status quo, Nabis was betrayed and murdered by agents of his ally, the Aetolian League. The most frequent call from those who favored social revolution in Hellenistic times was for the cancellation of debts and the thorough redistribution of land. These bold and drastic economic actions boiled down for many to the simple question of present survival and future prosperity. In Sparta and elsewhere, though, there was more to it than just economics. Conceptions of society itself were undergoing radical reinterpretation under the influence of Platonism and Stoicism. These philosophies taught the possibility of establishing utopias, perfect societies like none seen before, through social engineering, and many in Hellenistic times believed that their world had reached the point where such utopias were not just possible but needed. Agis IV apparently had come under some Platonic influence, projecting it back in time upon the first Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus, his hero; Cleomenes III was actually advised and taught by a Stoic philosopher, Sphaerus of Borysthenes (d. c. 210 BCE), who would have urged the king in working for the common good of all. Such dedication to social justice and egalitarian principles, even by means of social revolution, emerged again and again in later Hellenistic history, even within the Roman context, as the involvement of the Greek philosophers Blossius of Cumae and Diophanes of Mytilene with the famous reforms of the Gracchi in the second century BCE makes clear. Indeed, Blossius later joined the massive rebellion against Rome started by the Pergamene pretender Aristonicus; many of the latter’s supporters

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regarded his war (132–129 BCE) against the Roman Empire as a social revolution to establish a “Heliopolis,” a new state in which the Sun would shine down on all, alike free and equal (as in the tales told by the Hellenistic writer Iambulus). In Hellenistic times, then, social revolution took on new dimensions that provoked not only violent upheavals but also violent repression. Greeks sought to restructure their societies both in the interests of greater socioeconomic equity and in order to follow idealistic principles of how society could be. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoic; Economics and Work: Debt; Landownership; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Civil War; Leagues/Alliances; Spartan Constitution; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status FURTHER READING Cartledge, P. 1987. Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cartledge, P., and A. Spawforth. 1989. Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities. London and New York: Routledge. Erskine, A. 2011. The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action. 2nd ed. London: Bristol Classical Press. Ferguson, J. 1975. Utopias of the Classical World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Fuks, A. 1984. Social Conflict in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill. Hodkinson, S. 2000. Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Lintott, A. 1982. Violence, Civil Strife and Revolution in the Classical City, 750–330 BC. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Oliva, P. 1971. Sparta and Her Social Problems. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Powell, A., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 1999. Sparta: New Perspectives. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Shimron, B. 1972. Late Sparta: The Spartan Revolution, 243–146 BC. Buffalo: SUNY. Shipley, G. 2000. The Greek World after Alexander, 323–30 BC. London and New York: Routledge. Ste Croix, G. E. M. de. 1982. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

SPEECHWRITERS. See ORATORS AND SPEECHWRITERS TAXATION Ancient Greek communities, just like the individuals who constituted them, always sought to be self-sufficient. From a public finance standpoint, this meant that they

Economics and Work: Taxation

tried their best not to live beyond their means. If they needed extra revenue, they might contract for loans from temples (many of which functioned like banking establishments), but they did not expect to be regularly indebted for such loans and so did not manage their revenues through deliberate or planned budget deficits. Maintaining a regularly incoming stream of revenue was, therefore, the primary strategy for public finance and that was achieved through various forms of taxation. Ancient Greek governments raised revenue through renting state property, leasing mines and quarries, collecting court fees and fines, and charging for the use of public baths and latrines, and common lands for fishing or grazing of livestock. Although there was no such thing as income tax in the Greek world, some communities did impose direct taxes on yields from private farmland, slaves, or livestock. Most imposed customs duties and market fees of various sorts. The best and most abundant evidence on taxable revenues comes from Athens, where perhaps four hundred talents were collected each year through mandatory direct and indirect financial charges. The city-state gained a lot of its annual revenue from leasing out the silver mines of Laureion or the marble quarries on Mt. Pentelikon. Its numerous courts, staffed by thousands of citizen-jurors and citizen-presiders, raked in thousands of drachmae a year in fees and fines. The state received a cut of the proceeds from auctions ordered by public officials (for the sake of paying off outstanding debts, for instance). Athens levied customs duties (teloi) of 2 percent (  pente¯kostos, or “fiftieth”) on imports coming into and exports going out from their harbors, especially in Piraeus, which was the busiest port in all of Greece in Classical times; the citystate also charged harbor dues (ellimenion) for entering their ports (which helped pay for their upkeep). The epoˉnia, a sales tax of usually 1 percent, was collected on items sold in the Athenian agora, or marketplace. Foreigners (xenoi) had to pay a fee to engage in business in Athenian territory. Foreigners who had settled permanently in Athens and been registered as resident aliens (metoikoi) paid an annual poll tax (metoikion) of twelve drachmae per year for men and six drachmae per year for women. Prostitutes and their managers were usually resident aliens, and they had to pay an annual tax ( pornikos telos) in addition to the metoikion. Slaves who had gained their freedom in Athens were also registered as metics and so paid the same annual tax. Athenian citizens paid taxes (which they liked to call syntaxeis, or contributions) for the funding of their government and society, but often in an unequal fashion. Athenians of the lowest property class (the¯tes), for example, seem to have been exempt from the most burdensome taxes, which sat squarely on the shoulders of the well-to-do. Citizen-artisans, who belonged mainly to the next highest property class (zeugitai), likely paid the cheiroˉnaxion, an excise tax on their products, which was also collected from metics and foreigners. Citizens, and noncitizens, who owned slaves paid a yearly tax called the trioˉbolon on each slave.

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Aristophanes, the Athenian comic playwright, once made fun of an emergency property tax (tesserakostos, or “two and a half percent”). In urgent circumstances, Athenian citizens did pay an extraordinary property tax (eisphora) to fund military necessities. During the first half of the fifth century BCE, this was probably collected at graduated rates from each of the top three property classes into which citizens were divided; later, as the Peloponnesian War dragged on and became more expensive, the eisphora seems to have been shifted more and more onto the wealthier citizens. In the fourth century BCE, a period of some thirty to forty years witnessed the creation of a system through which one hundred symmoriai (shared-burden groups), consisting of the affluent class of citizens who paid for liturgies (important public events, like festivals, or projects, like naval vessels), paid the eisphora. The three richest members of each symmoria contributed the tax in advance and then reimbursed themselves later from the other members of their group. In the ancient Greek world, many different sorts of rents, fees, and taxes were farmed out (teloˉnia) by public officials to private tax gatherers (teloˉneis), who bid at auction for the contract (oˉne¯) to collect such revenues. For instance, according to the Athenian orator Demosthenes, Xenocleides purchased the right in 369 BCE to collect the 2 percent tax on grain in the marketplace. Each month, he offered to the state a certain sum of money up front and then proceeded through the year to reimburse himself by collecting from those who owed the grain tax; like other tax farmers, Xenocleides would have had the right, up to a certain point, to collect more than required in order to make a profit. The collection of taxes did not just take place within city-states. When such communities banded together to form long-term coalitions or leagues of cities, they imposed a form of taxation upon one another known in Greek as phoros. The best details for this sort of “multinational taxation” come from the Delian League, the alliance led by Athens first against the Persian Empire and later against Sparta and its Peloponnesian League. The Athenians collected the phoros for their coalition, determining the amounts of contributions and the methods of payment. Regulations for enforcement became quite strict, as evidenced in the Decree of Clinias (447/6 BCE); this set precise procedures for the recording and delivery of the annual phoros, as well as clear penalties for defaulting or defrauding the League treasury. The remains of the inscribed tribute lists of imperial Athens, together with information from the fifth-century BCE historians Thucydides and Xenophon, suggest that a yearly revenue of six hundred talents came into Athens from the Delian League. This made possible the accumulation of a reserve fund containing 6,000 talents, which could fund the operations of 6,000 warships for a month. Athenian allies even had to pay more when they came to trade in Athens, 5 percent (eikoste¯, or “twentieth”) instead of the 2 percent levied as customs duties on others.

Economics and Work: Taxation

In the late fifth and fourth centuries BCE, one of Athens’ chief international rivals, the Boeotian Confederacy, which consisted of the city-state of Thebes and its “fellow contributor” allies (summoroi), collected an eisphora on a regular basis. In the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), member states of the powerful Achaean League in southern Greece also funded their operations through a regular eisphora. Just as with taxes collected internally, taxes contributed by coalitions of cities might be hijacked for inappropriate purposes. For instance, the funds of the Delian League were regularly utilized to refurbish its fleet of warships, but in the middle of the fifth century, a sizable portion was also used to rebuild and beautify the city of Athens, still much in ruins after the Persian invasion of 480 BCE. The Athenians claimed that destruction as the justification for spending the money on nonmilitary projects, but many of the allies knew better. The Hellenistic Era witnessed the emergence of huge kingdoms ruled by Greeks who took taxation to an entirely new level from their society’s perspective. The Seleucids, the Greek rulers of Asia from Turkey to India, for instance, became quite wealthy from taxes on sales, customs, salt, private land, royal land, temple land, as well as tribute from their provinces and tithes from immigrant settlers. The Ptolemies, the Greek rulers of Egypt, possessed an even better organized and well-regulated system of taxation that had been developed over centuries by their Pharaonic predecessors. Thus, the Ptolemies collected over two hundred different taxes across their realm, in the form of required service to the crown, fees, property taxes, customs duties, liturgies from the wealthy, and so on. They had in their employ a sizable bureaucracy staffed by Egyptians and Greeks; royal managers in every village, district, and province surveyed the land, collected census data, established tax quotients, and imposed the taxes, assisted by royal secretaries, local finance ministers, accountants, and inspectors. Imports and exports, for example, were taxed up to twelve times across their “route” through warehouses, during customs, for loading fees, and so on. In city-states, coalitions, and kingdoms, tax exemption (ateleia), temporary or perpetual, was available to certain citizens in gratitude for their great generosity, to Olympic victors in gratitude for the honor they brought their community, to certain public servants in gratitude for the onerous responsibilities they had assumed, and so on. Most of those known to have been granted ateleia were xenoi, however, often merchants or skilled professionals or wealthy benefactors, whose services or assistance were keenly sought and appreciated. They earned exemption typically from customs duties. During festivals, for instance, Athens would grant such ateleia temporarily to visitors in order to increase their numbers (which, of course, brought all sorts of revenue into the city). The ancient Greeks did not object to indirect taxes, but hated the idea of direct taxes because they associated the latter with tyrannical government, either the

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“barbaric” kingdoms of the East or the royal or dictatorial regimes overthrown in their own history. Instead, the aristocratic ethos of “donating” to the central funds of one’s community took hold with the establishment of aristocracies in place of monarchies across Greece in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) and continued into the more democratic societies of Classical and Hellenistic times (490–30 BCE). They held on to the sense that whatever they contributed was not “done to them” by “the government” but done for each other. The Spartans demonstrated this mentality most of all, as they paid no “taxes,” but instead “contributed” to their economy by forcing the labor of their state slaves (heiloˉtes) and forcing the productivity of their subjected neighbors (  perioikoi), which together provided all the needs in kind of the Spartan citizens. Outside of Sparta, ancient Greeks paid quite minimal taxes, compared to people in modern societies, equivalent to perhaps 5 percent of their annual income instead of the anywhere from 20 to 40 percent paid today. Greek communities kept their taxes down as much as possible to the bare essentials, mainly to fund wars and defense and to maintain their community structures and institutions. Unlike in modern times, only elite Greeks in ancient times ever seem to have really complained about having to pay taxes. See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Banking; Cloth-Making; Currency; Debt; Merchants and Markets; Mining; Pottery-Making; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Trade; Viticulture; Weights and Measures; Family and Gender: Inheritance; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Grain; Olives and Olive Oil; Wine; Housing and Community: Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Public Officials; Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Andreades, A. 1979. A History of Greek Public Finance. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Archibald, Z. H., et al., eds. 2001. Hellenistic Economies. London and New York: Routledge. Finley, M. I. 1981. Economy and Society in Ancient Greece. London: Chatto & Windus. Gabrielsen, V. 1994. Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Samons, L. J., ed. 2000. Empire of the Owl: Athenian Imperial Finance. Stuttgart: Steiner. Samons, L. J., ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scheidel, W., I. Morris, and R. Saller, eds. 2007. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Economics and Work: Trade

TRADE Even in the absence of precise statistics and data on volume, modern scholars still feel confident in concluding that trade accounted for only about 2 percent of the local economies of the ancient Greek states in general, a figure similar to that in most preindustrial societies. So beyond immediate local needs, there was, in fact, very little exchange of goods when looking at the big picture. Yet certain parts of the ancient Greek world flourished especially because of commerce; for such locales, trade provided crucial income, jobs, resources, and products that could not be provided by other sectors of the economy. Trade among the Greeks seems to have begun for the sake of imports. The Mycenaean Greeks of the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) produced and exchanged their high-quality pottery, some of it for table use, some of it containing olive oil or wine, for precious foreign items such as glass, tin, copper, faience, ivory, and so on. Their vessels sailed the seas from Egypt to Italy to Spain. During the Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE) that followed the collapse of Bronze Age Greek civilization, only a trickle of goods seems to have been imported into the Greek territories from non-Greek lands. Archaeological evidence from that period, like the tenth-century BCE tomb at Lefkandi on Euboea, indicates the continued importing of pottery and luxury items from the eastern Mediterranean, as well as from northern Greece. By the later eighth century BCE, the trickle had turned to a flood, thanks in part to regular agricultural surpluses on the Greek side of the trading equation and in part to the concerted improvement of Greek ports. Thus, the Homeric poems describe even more luxury items from the eastern Mediterranean, like dyed textiles, bronze cauldrons, bowls, and tripods, all very fine quality. The colonization movement among the Greeks contributed a great deal to this, since the establishment of colonies usually followed along the trade routes and then encouraged their use even further. The dominant role played by the Euboean trading states in the colonization of the central Mediterranean is no coincidence. Indeed, colonization would have opened up virtual monopolies of certain resources to particular Greek communities and perhaps provided them with an outlet for their own products. By the fifth century BCE, though, with no new places to settle, trade networks had to widen beyond colonies and their mother cities. In terms of trade with non-Greeks, the city-states of Syria and Phoenicia especially satisfied many of the import demands of the Greeks going back to the Bronze Age, like glass, copper, dyes, and perfumes. Pharaonic Egypt served as one of the Greeks’ major foreign trading partners. In addition to supplies of the very valuable writing material made from the papyrus plants of the Nile delta, the Greeks

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traded with Egypt for salt, various seed oils, certain clays, alabaster, textiles, and bronze items; through Egypt, trade brought spices from Arabia and even as far as India. Moreover, trade contacts certainly led to the adoption of Egyptian styles in Greek artistry, such as is seen in kouroi (freestanding statues of young males in static, frontal, stylized poses) and korai (similar statues of young women), and in the architectural design of stone temples (especially erection of columns and precise use of geometrical calculations). Of course, once the Greeks established a kingdom in Egypt under the Ptolemies in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), they had control of the old Pharaonic monopolies on key products and raw materials. Neighbors to the north of Greece also provided desired items for Greek traders. The “tattooed” Thracians sold slaves (especially nursemaids apparently), fox-skin caps, and patterned cloaks, while the Illyrians of the Adriatic traded in racehorses, the Macedonians in gold, timber, and furs, and the Scythians in grain, horses, and slaves. Communities along the Black Sea coast provided smoked and pickled tuna. A network of Greek trade perhaps going back originally to Mycenaean times even brought amber down from the Baltic Sea and tin from Cornwall. Import trade among the Greeks had been propelled by the demands of their elites who, not surprisingly, consumed different goods than members of other social levels and so sought those goods from abroad. This meant foreign perfumes, cosmetics, wine, oil, clothes, and so on. Over time, as Greek citizens in general demanded a greater share in some of these finer things, trade served them as well, for instance, by providing special goods for festivals, like incense from far-off Arabia. Topography obviously mattered a great deal in determining the scale of trade in which an ancient city engaged. Athens, for instance, became a booming center for trade (a net importer, in fact) largely because of the excellence of its natural harbors, Marathon, Phaleron, Sounion, and especially Piraeus. Available local resources similarly benefited particular locales by making them natural centers for the trade in certain products. For instance, the abundant stone quarries of islands like Naxos and Samos, as well as near some of the Boeotian communities, gave them the best reputations in the trade for funereal and other statues during the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE). This was no easy mercantile task, as for instance in the case of the so-called Naxian Kouros, which merchants from Naxos transported whole to the island of Delos even though it weighed over twenty tons. In Classical times (490–323 BCE), the Naxians and Samians were largely superseded by the producers of finer marble, like Paros and especially Athens, which shipped the raw stone and its finished products. As early as the eleventh century BCE, wares from the communities on the island of Euboea could be found across the eastern Mediterranean. Bronze manufactured at Chalcis on Euboea, for example, was regarded as of the highest standard

Economics and Work: Trade

for armor across the Greek world. Corinth’s clay deposits made it a center for terracotta roof ornaments and pottery in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE; Corinthian merchants traveled everywhere and their pottery went with them. Athens, similarly blessed with abundant clay resources, surpassed Corinth in the production and export of what scholars call Protogeometric pottery and retained a major market share in Geometric pottery. Athens also held dominance in the trade of the Black Figure and Red Figure pottery of Archaic and Classical times. Even Corinthian ships may have carried the superior-quality Athenian products. Athens also exported premium-quality olive oil, as did Samos and Thurii; the Laconian communities traded marble of red and green. Phlius, Samos, Thasos, and Chios became famous for their exceptional wines, Thessaly for its grain, Megara for its onions, garlic, apples, pomegranates, and sheep, Kimolos and Mykonos for their fuller’s earth, Seriphus for its iron, Siphnos for its gold, and Athens for its silver. The export market became so important to some of these communities that their artisans actually specialized in producing and providing particular commodities. For instance, some 150 craftsmen at Athens seem to have produced all the pottery sent to the markets in Etruria (mod. Tuscany). Athenian and Etruscan trade, in fact, developed very strong bonds, the Etruscans eventually becoming excellent imitators of the Attic styles in painted pottery. Greeks from certain communities not only traded their own goods but also focused efforts on shipping the goods of others. Corinthian and Aeginetan merchants had thus dominated the carrying trade in the seas west of Greece in Archaic times, just as those from Samos, Miletus, and Chios did in the seas to the east. By Hellenistic times, the carrying trade in the west was especially picked up by the Massiliotes (mod. Marseilles) and in the east by the Rhodians. The political neutrality of Rhodes aided greatly in its trade expansion, as did the efforts of its navy to clear the eastern Mediterranean sea-lanes of pirates. With strong contacts in Egypt and Phoenicia, as well in the Greek territories, Rhodes thus became a major clearinghouse for trade goods and a center of inter-state banking, possessing the closest thing in ancient times to an official fleet of merchant vessels (like Venice and other places did in later eras). Shipwrecks investigated by archaeologists provide invaluable information on the cargos of ancient Greek trading vessels, which were typically quite mixed. Despite the large quantity of Greek pottery exported abroad, for example, ceramics seem not to have been the primary cargoes. Individual poleis could be protectionist in regard to trade, as Athens was in terms of the commerce in grain. By the fifth century BCE, the population of Attica needed to import at least 70 percent of its grain, close to 20,000 tons each year; about half a year’s imports to Athens thus consisted of grain. Sometimes they imported so

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much that they then had to export it. Still, the city-state prohibited Athenian vessels from shipping grain away from Athens (without express permission) and forbade its citizens and resident aliens from financing grain transport anywhere else but to Athens (again unless expressly permitted). Athenian colonies and cleruchies (settlements of individual citizens) fell under the same restrictions to guarantee the flow of certain products to and from Athens. Similarly, the island of Thasos in the north Aegean protected its local vintners by imposing taxes and tariffs on wine imports and prohibiting the transport of non-Thasian wine by Thasian vessels. Corinth worked to hold on to its trade routes to Magna Graecia and western Greece. In the same way, the Athenians made exclusive trade treaties for timber and pitch with Macedonian and Thessalian rulers, even provoking political coups there to guarantee arrangements favorable to Athens. For similar purposes, they cultivated good trade relations with the rulers of the Crimea. Athens interfered on the islands of Lemnos and Imbros and at Lampsacus on the Hellespont to guarantee access to the straits into the Black Sea. Cities on the island of Ceos even had to pledge all their vermilion to Athens to be used in their ship paint. Even the loss of the Delian League did not deflect Athens from this sort of trade policy, with attempts to control traders and push them to come to Athens. Most scholars assert that Mycenaean trade was centrally controlled and administered by the elites of the Bronze Age citadels. Even in later periods of Greek history, complete freedom of trade did not exist. In general, though, Greek states imposed only marginal regulations on commerce. Many also invested considerably in trade by providing infrastructure (harbors, market facilities, and so on) and legal recourses for merchants and shippers. Athens made special efforts to welcome traders in terms of favors toward their religious practices and better treatment for them in the Athenian courts. The Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) witnessed plenty of local and regional trade but also greater risks taken for greater profits in long-distance trade. This benefited from wider commercial networks (building upon preexisting ones), more protections for merchants (including naval support against piracy), improved infrastructure, and strong currencies. The Greeks also experienced competition in Hellenistic times as they had in the Dark Age and the Archaic Period. In those earlier eras, the Phoenicians had been their major rivals in shipping, while in the later time period, the “Tyrrhenians” or merchants from Italy took on that role. The seventh-century BCE poet Hesiod may have warned his readers about trade overland and by sea, but, certainly, the Greeks still became and remained the largest force in Mediterranean trade for centuries. Greek goods, especially luxury items made or transported by them, appear in the elite graves of Scythians on the Black Sea coast and of Celts in Austria, physical testimony of their far-flung trading ventures and the widespread demand for their trade items.

Economics and Work: Travel

See also: Arts: Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Epic; Sculpture, Archaic; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Banking; Cloth-Making; Currency; Debt; Merchants and Markets; Pottery-Making; Taxation; Travel; Viticulture; Weights and Measures; Fashion and Appearance: Cosmetics; Foreign Dress; Jewelry; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Grain; Olives and Olive Oil; Wine; Housing and Community: Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Science and Technology: Exploration; Ships/ Shipbuilding FURTHER READING Boardman, J. 1999. The Greeks Overseas. London: Thames & Hudson. Bresson, A. 2016. The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cartledge, P.  C., E.  E., Cohen, and L. Foxhall, eds. 2002. Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economy of Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Casson, L. 1991. The Ancient Mariners. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, E. E. 1973. Ancient Athenian Maritime Courts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garland, R. 1987. The Piraeus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Garnsey, P., K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker, eds. 1983. Trade in the Ancient Economy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Harries, E. M., D. M. Lewis, and M. Woolmer, eds. 2016. The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households, and City-States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hopper, R. J. 1979. Trade and Industry in Classical Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Meijer, F., and O. Van Nijf. 1992. Trade, Transport, and Society in the Ancient World. London and New York: Routledge. Millett, P.  C. 1991. Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morley, N. 2007.Trade in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parkins, H., and C. Smith, eds. 1998. Trade, Traders, and the Ancient City. London and New York: Routledge. Reed, C. M. 2003. Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ridgway, D. 1992. The First Western Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salmon, J. B. 1984. Wealthy Corinth. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

TRAVEL The vast majority of ancient Greeks stayed close to home for most of their lives, finding there all the things they needed and a full range of support for living from relatives and friends. Yet, from the earliest times in their history, the Greeks were

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also a highly mobile people when compared to many others in the ancient world. In a time when there was no need of passports, Greek individuals picked up and left for other locales across land or sea whenever they wished. Those who thus traveled elsewhere typically did so for the sake of significant gain, out of significant need, or from significant devotion. Most ancient Greek communities were sited in alluvial or coastal plains. Travel through such plains in regions like Attica, Boeotia, Thessaly, and the Peloponnese, as well as along the river valleys leading into them, was fairly safe and easy. People typically made use of dirt paths trodden by themselves and their animals and so literally followed in the footsteps of their ancestors. Some communities further facilitated overland travel by creating local roads at public expense or compelling private individuals to do so. In the fourth century BCE, for instance, the Athenian demes (villages or districts) built roads crisscrossing the region of Attica for the sake of improved commerce. The topography of Greece did make travel overland challenging beyond the alluvial and coastal plains. Some 80 percent of mainland Greece, not to mention the Greek islands, and even the Greek territories of western Asia Minor and southern Italy and Sicily, is heavily mountainous terrain, rugged, and often quite steep. The nearly ubiquitous presence of trees and low-lying vegetation compounded the difficulty of traversing this rocky landscape. Access between Greek communities was made possible thanks especially to passes through the mountains. Long-distance travel also took place over lowerlying hills and by zigzagging along mountainsides. Hence, important travel corridors developed, like the pass in central Greece known as Thermopylae, the “Hot Gates.” It was no accident of history that Thermopylae served as the site of several major battles in Greek warfare, most famously the last stand of the Spartan 300 against the Persian army of Xerxes; Thermopylae was the natural place, literally, for armies from the north and armies from the south to face-off against one another in mainland Greece. Travel by land, in the case of merchants, or diplomatic envoys, or religious pilgrims, or what have you, took place either on foot or riding on the backs of domesticated animals or in vehicles drawn by them. One could always recognize a traveler (hodeute¯s, hodite¯s, emporos) in the Greek world by their clothes. Men and women wore a broad-brimmed hat (  petasos) to protect against the sun, a cloak (abolla, amphible¯ma, sagma) to guard against cold snaps (and to use as a makeshift blanket if necessary), stout half-boots (arbulai) to keep their feet dry, and carried a long, wooden staff (bakte¯ria, skaptron), to ward off wild animals as well as human attackers. Although wealthy, and particularly aristocratic, Greeks rode horses on their travels from town to town, most Greeks made use of mules (oreis) and donkeys (onoi). Just like horses (hippoi), these animals could be ridden bareback or by

Economics and Work: Travel

sitting on a riding cloth (the Greeks did not have saddles) or carry packs of supplies or goods (over 200 pounds worth, in fact). Both mules and donkeys were not only cheaper to purchase, maintain, or hire than horses, but also sturdier and more resilient in traveling long distances over rough terrain in high temperatures; donkeys, for instance, could travel up to three days without water and with little rest, and mules possessed long life spans. Whether up in the hill country or down in the plains, ancient Greek travelers also made use of two-wheeled carts (hamaxai), sometimes with an awning for a cover, drawn by donkeys or mules. On board such a conveyance, passengers would often sit looking toward the back while their driver faced forward. Four-wheeled wagons (also called hamaxai or sometimes tetrakukloi) drawn by mules or oxen were mainly employed on the low-lying roadways, where they transported heavy loads (like stone, timber, grain, and so on) more often than passengers. Icy conditions in the winter and erosion from thunderstorms and snowmelt in the summer added to the challenges of traveling through the higher elevations of the Greek territories; in the lower elevations, one had to worry about floods and fiercely high temperatures during a large portion of the peak traveling season (March through September). Long journeys required frequent rest stops for water and food, not only for oneself but also for one’s pack animals. Weather conditions could change rapidly, especially when one traversed different climatic zones from one elevation to the next; outside the jurisdiction of city-states, bandits posed a frequent threat on the wide open road and in the hill country. Either bad weather or highwaymen could bring delays to one’s travels, or worse. Travel by ship had its risks as well. The ancient Greeks limited their sailing for the most part to the period from April to September, which they regarded as the safest season. Still, summer thunderstorms could pop up suddenly and be quite destructive. Pirates roamed the seas, and war at sea might catch a traveler unawares. There were also places where sea travel was notoriously dangerous, like the coastal capes of Taenarum and Malea, near Sparta. (This did not seem to disturb the Spartans that much, since they had only one port in their territory, the harbor of Gytheum, and did not seem to mind if access to it was limited by natural obstacles!) Still, to travel from Athens to Corinth by ship sailing down the coast took one day or less, while the same journey overland would have taken two to three days. One could travel all the way across the Aegean Sea by ship from Athens to Miletus in two or three days. Indeed, steady winds aided Greek sea voyages, blowing offshore on summer mornings and replaced by similar onshore winds in the afternoons. Thus, the sea came in very handy, despite its attendant dangers, for the purpose of speedy travel. Many of their communities were located in plains close to the sea so that the ancient Greeks could make plenty of use of that medium to get

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around. Moreover, the coastlines of the northern Mediterranean, and especially of the Aegean and the islands within it, possess many excellent harbors for use by sea voyagers, and a traveler was never more than thirty or forty miles from some seashore within the Aegean region (and, indeed, just about anywhere the ancient Greeks settled outside of it). Greek vessels engaged in commerce, the fishing business, or warfare traversed the seas; there was no such thing, however, as passenger vessels in those days. So, someone wishing to travel by sea typically went down to the local harbor to ascertain if any vessel there was headed in the direction he or she wished to go. If so, then the traveler would make a deal with the ship’s captain or owner to purchase passage for all or a portion of the ship’s voyage; payment took the form of money, exchange of goods, or even assisting the ship’s crew. Moreover, to make a journey across the sea, from Athens to Miletus, for example, might involve one trip aboard one ship or might require hopping from one port to another on board several vessels. The crossing could be rough and accommodations would be very simple (no luxury staterooms, but rather a simple cot or even just a pile of hay on deck to sleep on, and basic food to eat). For journeys by land or by sea to places where they had never been before, ancient Greeks had the opportunity of consulting not only more experienced travelers in person but also resources akin to modern guidebooks (often called periploi, especially when they traced maritime travel routes). The extensive knowledge that one ancient traveler could acquire can be seen in the ten-volume Description of Greece. Its author, Pausanias (second century CE), compiled information on monuments, artworks, local history and customs, religious festivals, and so on, for the regions of central and southern Greece, across which he journeyed himself. Although many Greek travelers traditionally stayed with xenoi or guest friends (citizens of other communities with whom they had established reciprocal relations as a result of business, political, or religious connections), the scale of Greek travel by land or sea also fostered the development of way stations (stathmoi) and inns (  pandokeia) where any stranger might stay in exchange for payment. Most such establishments offered the bare bones in accommodations, basically just a place to sleep and some sort of care for one’s pack animal(s) or vehicle. Taverns (kape¯leia) also emerged along the travel routes of the Greek world, separate establishments that made food and drink available to travelers. Although inns and taverns served a necessary function along the roads and at the harbors of the ancient Greek world, the Greeks did not have much respect for their proprietors or staff; running a stathmos, pandokeion, or a kapele¯ion was considered a profession typical of the lower classes, particularly of women from that status. Over the generations, the travel routes of the ancient Greek world saw countless merchants, artisans, artists, poets, musicians, authors, scientists, philosophers, healers, and diviners, as well as mercenaries, colonizers, and slaves, crisscrossing

Economics and Work: Viticulture

over land and sea. As far back as Homer, Greek stories told of such travelers, some willing searchers after far-off goals, others unwilling victims captured and moved around by someone else. Archaeology and history reveal Greek artisans having traveled the long journey from their homeland to Persepolis, one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, in service to the Great King. The poet Alcaeus recalled his brother’s experience as a mercenary soldier in faraway Babylon, while a later generation of such men left testimony to themselves in the graffiti they carved on ancient Egyptian monuments at Abu Simbel. The Greeks believed that the god Hermes, a traveler himself, guided them on their journeys and that the greatest god of them all, Zeus, liked to disguise himself as a simple traveler in order to test human piety; he particularly gave protection to travelers and guests far from home. Clearly, all of this attests to the significant place of travel in ancient Greek culture. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Sophists; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Merchants and Markets; Trade; Fashion and Appearance: Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Footwear; Foreign Dress; Headgear; Food and Drink: Hospitality; Housing and Community: Colonization; Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries; Science and Technology: Exploration; Ships/Shipbuilding; Vehicles FURTHER READING Casson, L. 1994. Travel in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Casson, L. 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Clutton-Brock, J. 1992. Horsepower: A History of the Horse and Donkey in Human Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dillon, M. 1997. Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Habicht, C. 1998. Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pretzler, M. 2007. Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece. London: Bristol Classical Press.

VITICULTURE The inhabitants of the Aegean basin were growing grapevines (ampeloi) since at least 7000 BCE, that is, about 5,000 years before the first Greeks settled in that

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region. The Greek newcomers certainly did not neglect the viticulture they found and, indeed, made it one of the most flourishing aspects of their society and culture. Along with cereal grains and olives, grapes were the other staple crop of ancient Greek agriculture. In addition to the fresh fruit, the Greeks dried grapes to make raisins and pressed them to make juice and wine. Cuttings from grapevines served as fuel for burning and mulch for other crops. Grape leaves were used in Greek recipes, then as now. The ancient Greeks planted grapevines of one type or another everywhere they could. Whereas cereal grains had to be planted in the precious flatlands of the Greek territories, grapevines, like olive and fig trees, could be planted on hillsides and along coastal fringes to make maximum use of available land. Indeed, the Greeks learned that thin-soiled (though not barren ground), stony hillsides unsuitable for other forms of agriculture actually worked fine for grapevines. They also discovered how resilient grapevines were to extremes of temperature and climate and which varieties could handle which conditions better; for instance, they learned that too much rain in late spring or midsummer was bad for the flowers on the vine, while lots of rain later in the growing season served the vine best. The ideal arrangement for a vineyard (ampeloˉn) was to plant the vines in diagonal rows in well-watered soil. This was one of the reasons why the Athenians, for instance, cut terraces along the slopes of the mountains in Attica; vineyards planted in such terraces retained rainfall runoff. The ancient Greeks learned not to propagate new vines from grape seeds because these generated more of a wild variety that typically produced immature fruit, if they fruited at all; they also learned that grapevines were not capable of propagation through grafting of new pieces on to established parts. Instead, they propagated new vines by planting branch cuttings taken from the higher portions of established vines, that is, from the newer shoots on which the most recent fruit had been produced. Ancient Greek farmers often kept some grapevines low to the ground in the manner of a bush; this helped conserve moisture within the plant and protect the surrounding soil from too much sunlight. Otherwise, they grew other grapevines on props, on trellises, and even hugging trees. The Athenian author Xenophon told of his mentor, the famous Socrates, and the latter’s friend Ischomachus discussing vines climbing trees. Tending grapevines required more work than any other crop. It was a nearly continuous process throughout the year. Greek farmers learned from observing the spreading leaves of the plants themselves that the tender clusters of fruit, and young vines in general, needed protection from excessive heat and scorching by sunlight in their earlier stages, but that later in the growing season or in the life of the vine, when the vine leaves withered so the sunlight could ripen the fruit, they

Economics and Work: Viticulture

needed less protection. They found that they did not have to worry as much about frost, since grapevines could survive that fairly well. Farmers did, however, have to watch for pests, like caterpillars, that attacked the fruit or the leaves. Pruning of the vines took place in the early springtime. Harvesting of the fruit by hand and its collection in wicker baskets came in the early fall and was soon followed by the start of the wine-making process, for those grapes not kept for other uses. Winter, during which the vines went dormant, was the season for digging the ground around the plants to aerate the soil and tilling the ground to control weeds; farmers were very careful in their work not to damage healthy roots because this could invite pests to feed on the plant there and bring about its deterioration. The postharvest season was also the time for fertilizing the vines with manure, charcoal, wood, food scraps, and so on, and for thinning out their surface roots and cutting off dead wood. These latter procedures were especially necessary if a vine was not fruiting or not fruiting well; Greek farmers knew that a good trimming would allow the vine to renew itself in the third or fourth season afterward. Indeed, some ancient agronomists recommended doing this every ten years or so, alternating which side of the vine received the root-and-bark trimming based on its condition. The ancients were fascinated by how many different kinds of grapevine developed in different kinds of soil and climate conditions. Some varieties remained sterile, flowering but never fruiting, while other varieties produced grapes in ranges of color from white to rosy to purple to black and in ranges of shape from berry-looking to finger-long to swollen-round. They were also fascinated with how grapevine varieties naturally mutated, domesticated types turning wild, dark-grape-producing turning to light-grape and the reverse, fruiting without leaves to fruiting from the stem instead of the branches, and so on. Since ancient Greek households could not always consume all the grapes, raisins, and wine they produced, viticulture became one of the cash crops of their world, like growing olives and figs. Farmers successful with their vineyards could become prosperous and come to constitute a new stratum of wealth in their communities. Southern Greece and a number of the islands of the Aegean, for example, attained high reputations for exporting their surplus wine. As the Greeks colonized and traded across the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, they spread not only their urban culture but also their viticulture. Thus, they taught the peoples of Italy, Gaul, and northeastern Spain in the west and the peoples of the Black Sea in the east how to plant and tend the vine. Although the Greeks were aware that viticulture had been around since their earliest history, they regarded growing the grape and making wine from it as distinctive features of their city-states, as marks of civilized life. The eighth-century BCE poet Homer charmed his listeners with his description of Laertes, the aged father of Odysseus, tending his hillside vineyard on Ithaca, and

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he included on the fabled Shield of Achilles an image of a mythical golden vineyard where the vines were held up by props of silver. The seventh-century BCE poet Alcaeus of Lesbos perhaps captured best the ancient Greek view about the long-lived plant so sacred to the god Dionysus: never plant any other tree before first planting a grapevine. See also: Arts: Gold and Silver; Literature, Hellenistic; Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Trade; Food and Drink: Drunkenness; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Meals; Wine; Recreation and Social Customs: Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Libations and Offerings FURTHER READING Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Finley, M. I. 1973. The Ancient Economy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Frankel, R. 1999. Wine and Oil Production in Antiquity in Israel and Other Mediterranean Countries. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. E. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Lambert-Gocs, M. 1990. The Wines of Greece. New York: Faber and Faber. McGovern, P. E. 2003. Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McGovern, P. E., S. J. Fleming, and S. H. Katz, eds. 1996. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine. London: Gordon and Breach Publishers. Morris, I., ed. 1994. Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Younger, W. 1966. Gods, Men, and Wine. Dumfermline, U.K.: The Wine and Food Society.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES Each Greek community had its own standards for measuring and weighing, developed over time as customary; certain communities, like Athens, became so militarily and economically prominent that their standards were adopted by other Greek states or at least incorporated into their local systems. The Greeks, like other ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, based their linear measurements on the human body. So, the smallest measure was the daktylos, or “finger” length (roughly 2 cm or 0.75 inch). Then came the kondylos, or “knuckle” (roughly 4 cm or 1.5 inches), the palaiste¯, or

Economics and Work: Weights and Measures

“palm” (roughly 8 cm or 3 inches), the pechys, or “forearm” (roughly 45 cm or 18 inches), the be¯ma (stride) or diplooun (double-step) (roughly 1 m or 3 feet), and the orgyia, or “outstretched arms” (roughly 1.85 m or 6 feet). Each of these measures varied in length from place to place, the rough modern equivalents given above illustrating averages among the different recorded lengths. The standard unit of linear measure across the Greek world, the pous, or “foot” (pl. podes), also varied, stretching roughly 29 cm or 11.5 inches in Attica, 32.5 cm or 13 inches in Doric communities, and 35 cm or 14 inches in Ionian communities (such as the island of Samos, after which it was called the “Samian foot”). The smaller measures were conceived of as fractions of the pous, as in eight kondyloi to the pous, and larger ones were multiples of it, as in 10 podes to the akaina (pointing rod), 100 podes to the plethron, or 600 podes to the stadion (stadium length). Similarly, for the calculation of surface areas, the Greeks spoke in terms of the akaina, meaning a square measuring 10 podes on each side, or the plethron (also sometimes called the gyes, or “ploughshare”), meaning a square measuring 100 podes on each side. The Attic standards for calculating volumes of dry and liquid goods were widely used across the Greek world by the end of the fifth century BCE. This meant that the standard unit of dry measure, the medimnos, or “rule,” contained roughly 52 liters or 47 quarts. Subdivisions of the medimnos included the hekteus, or “sixth” (roughly 8.8 liters or 8 quarts), the hemihekton, or “half-sixth” (roughly 4.38 liters or 4 quarts), the choinix (roughly 1.1 liters or 1 quart), and the kotyle¯, or “cup” (roughly 0.3 liter or 0.25 quart). The Greeks considered the choinix of four kotylai of grain as an adequate daily ration for a laborer. Just as the kotyle¯ served as the building block for dry measures, so did it also for liquid ones, itself equivalent to about 0.27 liter or half a pint, what Greeks would have considered the size of a standard drinking cup. Thus, twelve Attic kotylai made one chous, or “pitcher-full” (roughly 3.3 liters or 0.8 gallon) and 144 kotylai added up to one metre¯te¯s (measurer) or amphoreus (container-full) (roughly 39 liters or 10 gallons). Two different systems of weights pervaded the Greek territories. One came from the island of Euboea via Athens, and so is known as the Attic standard, while the other came from the island of Aegina. The former was adopted wherever Athens had the most influence, which meant especially the islands of the central and north Aegean and the western coast of Turkey, whereas the latter spread among the south Aegean Islands, central Greece, and the Peloponnese. The standard unit of weight measurement was either called state¯r (weigher) or drachma (handful), the former term preferred among those who followed the Aeginetan system, the latter among those who followed the Attic. The average state¯r weighed about 6.24 g (roughly 0.21 ounce), while the average drachma weighed 4.37 g (roughly 0.15

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ounce), so it took roughly 70 Aeginetan state¯res to equal 100 Attic drachmae; 100 drachmae, roughly equivalent to one modern pound, the Athenians would refer to as one mina, a term they adopted from the cultures of the Ancient Near East. The Greeks subdivided state¯res and drachmae into one-sixths or obeloi (little rods) and multiplied them into both minae and talanta (balance scales), each talanton, or talent, equaling 60 minae. They considered the talent, ranging from 26 kg to 37 kg (57 pounds to 81 pounds), as the maximum weight the average person could safely lift, and its name reminds us that weights were confirmed in the ancient Greek world by means of balance scales. Since dry and liquid measures, as well as weight standards, varied from community to community (for instance, on Aegina, where the amphoreus contained roughly 55 liters, or at Sparta, where the medimnos contained roughly 78 liters), local policing of and provision for determination of “correct” weights and measures became essential, especially for communities engaged in vigorous inter-state trade. In Athens, for instance, cylindrical ceramic measuring containers have been identified in the main marketplace, or agora, near the building known as the Tholos, where officials called metronomoi supervised proper weights and measures. By Hellenistic times, most Greek cities had stone measuring tables with holes dug into them where dry or liquid goods would be placed to determine their volume, and counterweights (squares, rectangles, and triangles of bronze, lead, and stone) have been discovered in many Greek archaeological sites where weights were verified. In the ancient Greek world, then, a traveler among different communities would have frequently witnessed the “drama” of weighing and measuring and would have become familiar with a variety of “standards.” In fact, besides their own systems, the Greeks adopted concepts from non-Greek cultures as well, like the Persian parasang for calculating distance traveled (equivalent to about 30 Attic stadia) or the Egyptian setjat, known as aroura in Greek, for calculating surface area of farmland. Certainly, weights and measures did not constitute the simplest aspect of the ancient Greek working environment. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Banking; Carpentry; Currency; Masonry; Merchants and Markets; Mining; Trade; Travel; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Grains; Olives and Olive Oil; Wine; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Politics and Warfare: Public Officials; Science and Technology: Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Berriman, A. E. 1953. Historical Metrology. London: Dutton.

Economics and Work: Weights and Measures Kisch, B. 1965. Scales and Weights: A Historical Outline. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lang, M. 1964. Excavations in the Athenian Agora. Vol. 10: Weights, Measures and Tokens. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Richardson, W. F. 2003. Numbering and Measuring in the Classical World. 2nd ed. Bristol, U.K.: Bristol Classical Press.

WET NURSES. See MIDWIVES AND WET NURSES

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INTRODUCTION Aside from anomalous communities like Sparta, ancient Greek society was built upon the family, or oikos, broadly conceived as those who lived within the same household under the same kyrios (legal authority figure), thus potentially including not only husband, wife, and children, but also grandparents, parental siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, even servants. The philosopher Aristotle, in his seminal analysis of political institutions among the Greeks, traced society itself back to the family as the very origin of all other political forms. In Athens, candidates for public office had to formally prove that they took good care of their families, particularly their parents and their household customs of worship; all Greeks believed that Zeus himself watched over the oikos. Thousands of inscriptions and works of art from ancient Greece attest to the mutual affections of and obligations toward family members, to their rituals and ceremonies with crucial familial and social significance, and to the regulations put into place by many communities to ensure the continuity of the property and traditions of individual families and clans of families; the oldest recorded law codes among the Greeks, in fact, aimed primarily at protecting families. Intimately tied to their understanding of hearth, home, and family was the Greek conception of gender roles and sexuality; within the home, among their brothers and sisters, ancient Greeks learned what was expected of men and of women and these expectations had clear delineations. Ancient Greek social customs established gender hierarchies and the proprieties of sexual behavior, reinforced by the teachings of philosophy and medicine.

ABANDONMENT AND ABORTION Most families in the ancient Greek world had to carefully balance the number of their offspring against the resources available to raise them; fathers technically had the responsibility and the right to decide whether children should be kept or 213

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whether they should be abandoned. Unwanted children did not just face abandonment, though; their parents jointly or their mother alone might choose to abort them in the first place. It was legal in most Greek communities to abandon one’s child, that is, to expose one’s unwanted offspring by leaving them somewhere in town away from one’s home or out in the countryside or the wilderness to die. At Athens, for instance, the decision to expose an unwanted child was supposed to take place within the first five days or so after its birth. The delay likely had to do, in part, with giving the child’s father and family a chance to weigh the consequences of their decision and possibly reconsider it. Another reason for the delay, though, was that within seven to ten days of the birth, Greek tradition expected the parents (again, the father primarily) to name the new child and introduce it to the community through the rituals of Amphidromia and Dekate¯. Once converted, in a sense, by these rites of passage into a recognized member of the community, a child could no longer be abandoned through exposure under the law. As noted above, the primary motive for abandoning a child seems to have been the deleterious effect raising it would have on the family and its resources. Most Greek families lived barely at the subsistence level in the first place; on top of that, their traditions expected parents to leave property and land equally to all sons and to provide substantial dowries to all daughters. Thus, if parents had too many children, even just one too many, there might not be enough inheritance to leave to the next generation for them to have a sufficient economic start. Moreover, if a child was born with apparent physical or mental disabilities, this might also be considered harmful to the family as a whole: a girl with such problems would likely never marry and thus remain a permanent burden on her parents; a boy with such problems would not be able to pull his own weight in the family business and, again, likely not be marriageable either. In addition to potential economic hardship, a child born out of wedlock would risk bringing shame upon an unwed mother or her family, or in the case of an unfaithful wife, upon her husband; such a child might, therefore, be regarded as worth abandoning. Lastly, some evidence reveals that female children were more often abandoned than male children; again, this likely had to do primarily with practical considerations in terms of the greater perceived need for males as workers within the family structure and as heirs carrying on the family traditions, besides the political and especially military demands that city-states placed on males rather than females. An ancient Greek family abandoning a child would not always have expected that child to die; consider how many of the Greek myths involved the rescuing of foundling children. In point of fact, then, they more often may have expected the child to be rescued and reared by someone else, in a manner which would not bring

Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion

dishonor or shame upon the birth family. Children exposed inside one’s own town or in nearby communities were often left near sacred precincts, shrines, or temples, which would have been such frequented places that the parents could hope for someone to take up their child, even perhaps protected by the god or goddess worshipped there. Exposing one’s child in open land or in forests or mountains placed the girl’s or boy’s life in more imminent peril, but even such places likely were chosen because farmers, shepherds, lumberjacks, travelers, and so on, even slave dealers, would likely pass by there and find the abandoned child. The one Greek community well-attested in its official policy of abandoning certain newborns to their deaths was Sparta. There, public officials expected ­families to throw their unwanted children, that is, those the community deemed below its standards of physical health and perfection, into a ravine of nearby Mt. Taygetos. In terms of abortion as a means of family planning, there were many methods available to the ancient Greeks, most of them unsafe and quite risky, from violent exercise that could cause a miscarriage, to plant extracts or herbs that ingested or inserted could poison the fetus (and potentially the mother as well), to surgeries that would scoop out the fetus from the uterus. Although individual Greeks, especially Greek husbands, might have regarded abortion as murder, Greek society in general did not. No civic laws prohibited abortion in the Greek communities, and only a few sacred law codes banned from holy places those who had engaged in an abortion; most simply forbade entry for a limited time. Greek authors, both medical and philosophical, did discuss not only the dangers of but also the moral justifications (or lack thereof ) for abortion; just as today, there were those who favored abortion under very particular circumstances and those who objected to it on any grounds. Unlike today, even those who did consider abortion an option, especially for the sake of the mother’s safety and health, insisted that it must be done quite early, within no more than forty days or so into the fetus’ development. Insufficient evidence remains for any reasonable calculation or even helpful speculation on the frequency of child abandonment or abortion in ancient Greek times. No firmly recorded cases of exposure have ever been discovered in Athens, for example, despite the prevalence of the theme of abandonment in Greek literature, especially in the plays of Athenian theater. Written sources do seem to suggest the normalcy of the practice, but, however frequent its actual occurrence might have been, they also openly portray the emotional scars on the families involved, indicating that abandonment was not something engaged in carelessly or heartlessly. Abortion caused a considerable stir in the Greek world, but primarily among those seeking to save lives or change society in radical ways, or among husbands who felt cheated in the promise of offspring. As a society, the Greeks did

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little to limit abortions and, instead, seem to have accepted them as just another means of addressing unwanted children. See also: Family and Gender: Adultery; Childbirth and Infancy; Daughters; Fathers; Inheritance; Mothers; Sons; Science and Technology: Medicine FURTHER READING Blok, J., and P. Mason, eds. Sexual Asymmetry: Studies in Ancient Society. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Dixon, S., ed. 2001. Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World. London and New York: Routledge. Kapparis, K. 2002. Abortion in the Ancient World. London: Duckworth. Riddle, J. M. 1992. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

ABORTION. See ABANDONMENT AND ABORTION ADOPTION Adoption coincided with the structures of Greek marriage and family relations. In a Greek family, even though all the children, sons and daughters, inherited some share of their father’s estate, only the sons had the legal obligation of taking care of their father and mother in their old age; a daughter would typically have been married off to another family, where she would have shared in the responsibility of caring for her elderly in-laws along with her husband. Since the connection of daughters to their natal families was largely severed through marriage, sons had preeminent importance to aging parents; someone without sons would therefore search for surrogate sons, in a sense, through legal adoption. Adoption was, in essence, a defining privilege of free status; slaves, of which there were many in the Greek world (especially in big cities like Athens), could not adopt nor could they be adopted (unless first freed). Thus, an important distinction between modern and ancient adoptions involves the divide between free and slave in the ancient context, which has no equivalent in the modern. Another significant distinction is that ancient Greek men, not women, engaged in adoption; the legal processes for it were established in the various city-states for the benefit of citizen men who lacked heirs to their family estates. Unlike a modern family, in which one might find older, natural sons and younger, adoptive sons, Greek parents who already had heirs in the form of sons, or even grandsons, would not adopt another. Also very different from today, the vast majority of those

Family and Gender: Adoption

adopted in the Greek communities were themselves adult male citizens, not children, and typically not women, and usually shared more or less the same socioeconomic status as their adoptive fathers rather than coming from underprivileged or other troubled circumstances. In other words, adoption was not a form of “child rescue” in the Greek world, but rather, as noted above, a means of protecting parents (especially fathers) and their legacies. For the adopted son, adoption might be attractive as a form of advancement or at least of socioeconomic security. He would take the name and essentially the status of his adoptive father (which might be superior to his own) and inherit (perhaps a sizable estate) under the law just as if he had been a natural son. Furthermore, his adopted status was virtually inviolable unless legally, and successfully, contested. Even if his adoptive father and mother should have sons of their own after the adoption, he would not be disinherited because of those sons, but would continue to be regarded legally as another full-fledged son. Of course, in such a case, he would no longer inherit the entire estate, which might constitute a serious disappointment of his hopes in having been adopted in the first place. Evidence for actual adoptions from the Greek world, especially from Athens, reveal that they usually involved relatives; that is, relatives adopted relatives much more often than they adopted true outsiders to the family. Moreover, as part of the adoption process, a family’s new son was frequently expected to marry his stepsister; this was thought to further firm up the bonds between the adopted and the natural family members, making the adopted even more of a relative. The adoption process itself resembled the rituals engaged in by Greeks to arrange for recognition of their natural children by the wider community. An Athenian father, for instance, would present his sons and daughters when they were on the threshold of adulthood to the “brothers” of his phratry (a mutual aid society) and to the men of his deme (neighborhood government, a subdivision of the polis), that is, to those citizens who voted and fought alongside the father in the performance of their duties to the city-state. Fellow phrateres and demesmen thus bore witness to the legitimacy of one’s children, and adopted sons also had to be legally and formally accepted as members of their adoptive father’s phratry and deme. In fact, if any dispute arose over the legality of an adoption, phrateres and demesmen were called upon to provide what was regarded as the most compelling evidence in family court. Since anyone adopted had to be already a citizen of the same community as the person who adopted him, the adoptee in Athens, for instance, had, in fact, already undergone the process of legal recognition just described as a young adult with his own father. That original process was now superseded by the adoption, as if the adoptee had never been a member of his birth father’s deme or phratry, odd as that might at first appear. The adopted person now had no legal obligation whatsoever to his natal family and no legal rights whatsoever to anything of theirs.

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An adoption might also take place posthumously, that is, after the death of the adoptive father as the outcome of provisions in his last will and testament. In this case, informal arrangements for the adoption likely had already taken place between the two parties, but the formal presentation to deme or phratry had not. These rites of passage would occur after the will received approval from the relevant family members and judicial bodies of the community. Adoption existed in the ancient Greek world, then, to fulfill certain needs of families, and especially of fathers, with their concerns over care during old age, passing on of inheritance, and continuation of traditions. See also: Economics and Work: Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Extended Family; Fathers; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Sons; Housing and Community: Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Primary Documents: Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998 Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rubinstein, L. 1993. Adoption in IV. Century Athens. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

ADULTERY Ancient Greek regulations against adultery (moicheia) were, in one sense, narrow; they defined adultery itself as a wife’s, not a husband’s, betrayal of the marriage bonds. Regulations against adultery, though, were also, in another sense, broad;

Family and Gender: Adultery

they seem to have included with adultery any sexual act with free, citizen women who were considered off-limits to the men involved. Athenian law permitted an Athenian husband to kill an adulterer caught in the act with his wife or his legitimate concubine (a woman with whom he lived on a permanent basis but without a marriage contract). Indeed, such provisions of justifiable homicide extended to cover all those women under the legal authority and protection of a head of household (kyrios). So, a father could kill his daughter’s lover caught in the act, whether consensual or not, just as a guardian could do in the case of a young female under his care. Under similar circumstances, a brother who had legal guardianship over his sister could kill her lover, and a son who had legal guardianship over his widowed mother could kill any man caught in the act of sex with her. Women in Athens, thus, had no freedom over their bodies in a sexual sense. If they were married or lived permanently with a man, their sexuality belonged to him; if they were unmarried or widowed, they had no right to their own sexuality with a lover of their choice. Outside of marriage, the sex act was an adulterous act. An exemplary case of a husband killing his wife’s lover involved Euphiletus and Eratosthenes of Athens; the former killed the latter in 403 BCE. The relatives of Eratosthenes, however, disputed Euphiletus’ right to do so and hauled him in to court on charges of premeditated homicide. Euphiletus hired Lysias of Syracuse (c. 445–c. 380 BCE), a metic (resident alien) who made his living as a speechwriter and teacher of rhetoric in Athens, to compose the defense speech he addressed to the jury. In this speech, the wronged husband insisted that he had every right to kill Eratosthenes because the latter not only had had an intrigue with his wife but also had brought disgrace upon his children and an outrage upon his reputation as a husband. He informed the jury that his wife had been corrupted by the adulterer, who had had his eye on her ever since the funeral of Euphiletus’ mother; indeed, this Eratosthenes “made an art” of carrying on affairs with other married women, one of whom, out of jealousy, arranged to inform Euphiletus about what his wife was up to with Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes was so brazen as to employ his own mother as a go-between so that he could meet up with Euphiletus’ wife at a religious festival while the latter was out of town; he had sex with her in Euphiletus’ own home, even right under his very nose. That was how Euphiletus and his friends arranged to catch the adulterers in the act, while the two of them thought that he was fast asleep in another room of the house. There were plenty of witnesses to see what the couple was doing and to see Euphiletus strike Eratosthenes and later kill him, only after the latter had verbally admitted his guilt. The Athenians as well as other Greeks thus intended the handling of adultery to be a fairly private process because marriage was largely a private thing. The

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community did have a vested interest, however, because an adulterous woman and her lover might attempt to pass off their illegitimate child as an heir to the estate belonging to her husband or other male kyrios. In societies such as these all across the ancient Greek world, citizenship was built upon ownership of land and the perpetuation of family cults by citizen males and their legitimate offspring; allowing illegitimate relationships and illegitimate heirs would have destroyed the very foundations of social, economic, and political life. So, in Athens, if a wronged husband or kyrios did not wish to take the adulterer’s life, he always had the option of summoning his family members or friends to assist him in handing the adulterer over to the authorities. In that case, he preferred charges against the adulterer and a jury of fellow citizens heard the case. Legal protections were set in place against false accusations and entrapment. If convicted, though, the adulterer might again face the death penalty, only this time at the hands of the Eleven, the official executioners of Athens. Other communities also allowed the killing with impunity of an adulterer caught in flagrante delicto, but some did not permit such an extreme penalty. In the city-state of Gortyn on the island of Crete, for instance, the law code expected ransom of the adulterer, the amount graded at various levels (depending on the location of the act and the statuses of the woman and her lover), and other Cretan communities seemed very fond of imposing fines for sexual misconduct. Similar sorts of fines for adultery were even written into the marriage contracts of Hellenistic Egypt. Even Athenian law allowed a husband or kyrios, if he felt like showing some leniency to the red-handed adulterer, to ransom the latter back to his family or friends, probably for a hefty price. Still other penalties might await the captured adulterer. For example, a popular humiliation was to forcibly remove all—or some conspicuous portion—of his body hair (as happened to Cratinus according to Aristophanes’ Acharnians). Since ancient Greek males exercised in the nude in public spaces (gymnasia or palaestrae), it would have been impossible for the adulterer to escape the notice of his comrades. Even if he refrained from public exercise, that would have aroused suspicions and branded him as antisocial. Still, he would have gotten off lightly compared to an adulterer in the southern Italian city-state of Locri, whose eyes could be gouged out in lieu of the death penalty! Adulterous women, that is, mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, and mistresses accused of having had illegitimate lovers, faced excommunication from society, a fate worse than death, in all the oldest regulations against sexual misconduct (with the exception of the Gortyn Codes). Any further punishment typically came at the discretion of their kyrioi or husbands. Athenian law prescribed, however, that a husband divorce his adulterous wife or, at least, exclude her from community events and from attending sacrifices to the gods, which essentially meant

Family and Gender: Adultery

all religious ceremonies or festivals, private or public. Furthermore, the lawgiver Solon, who literally wrote the book on adultery sanctions in Athens, said that it was permissible for adulterous women to be subjected to public abuse, such as the stripping off of their clothes and ornaments, and even public assault and beating, at the hands of other citizens, men and women. Any of the above consequences from the act of publicly accusing an Athenian woman of adultery or sexual misconduct would have brought about the public dishonor of the husband and his family, as well as her own. Scholars rightly suspect that Athenian husbands often neglected to carry out these sanctions in order to avoid such humiliating, “contagious” disgrace. Similarly, Athenian law permitted a kyrios to sell his adulterous daughter or sister into slavery, but there is no evidence of this ever having occurred in any of our literary or epigraphic sources. Instead, the evidence suggests that such women were simply kept at home, perpetually unmarried, which would have been worse than widowhood for them, considering the value placed on women as child-bearers in ancient Greek societies. The city-state of Sparta is the only ancient Greek community we know of that had no legal provisions for adultery. Yet Sparta had a most unusual social structure, in which all citizen males and females were regarded as belonging to the community as a whole first, to their particular families second. Hence, Spartan law allowed a married woman to have sexual relations with a man not her husband if she were still young enough to bare children and her husband too old or too infirm to beget them; the elderly husband was required by law to approve of this by seeking out a suitable sexual partner for his young wife. Furthermore, unmarried Spartan men could request to sleep with married women who had a reputation for fertility; the husband’s consent was all that was required. In other words, this “wife-sharing” was still not a case of sexual freedom for the woman, but a case of extending her productivity for the benefit of the community; her husband was expected not to hoard her fertility within an unproductive marriage or where there was an opportunity for further productivity through other fellow Spartans. The ancient Greek world generally rejected polygamy, embracing monogamy as the social and legal norm. In such an environment, obviously, adulterous men and women would face sanction. The historian Xenophon called adulterers destroyers of the friendship between wife and husband. Adulterous men faced the greater sanctions because men had greater freedom of action within Greek societies and hence greater responsibility to respect social barriers. See also: Economics and Work: Landownership; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Blended Families; Childbirth and Infancy; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Extended Families; Fathers; Friendship and Love; Inheritance;

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Marriage; Men; Mothers; Sexuality; Sons; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Primary Documents: Lysias on the Murder of an Adulterer (403 BCE); Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cohen, D. 1991. Law, Sexuality, and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, J. 1997. Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, M., and T. Ryan, eds. 2005. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Pomeroy, S., ed. 1991. Women’s History and Ancient History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

BLENDED FAMILIES The high rate of mortality for adults (especially mothers) and children in the world of the ancient Greeks, the custom of younger wives marrying much older husbands, the relative ease of obtaining release from marriage by means of divorce, and the option of adopting heirs in case one did not have any of one’s own, all meant that many Greek families consisted of spouses who had been married previously and of children who came from other marriages. In other words, the Greeks had great familiarity with what today would be called stepfamilies or blended families. Evidence suggests that ancient Greek husbands and wives often predeceased one another, the former because of old age or death in battle, the latter because of complications from childbirth. More marriages probably ended from death than from divorce, but Greek laws did give husbands and wives the legal opportunity of divorce through relatively simple processes. Widowers would have typically

Family and Gender: Blended Families

looked to remarry, especially if they had children to be cared for, while widows would have done the same, especially if they had children in need of fatherly protection and still had the capacity to bear children for another husband; divorced men and women, as long as not formally stigmatized in the proceedings, would also have frequently sought remarriage. Just like their modern counterparts, ancient Greek stepfamilies created either by remarriage or by first marriage into an already existing family faced problems with emotional adjustment and sense of belonging, as well as incidents of sexual assault (incest) and conflicts over inheritance. Greek mythology furnishes many, many stories involving step-relations extracted from real-life experiences in the Greek world, even if exaggerated at times. There were cases of stepparents who resented the biological children of their spouses, as in the legendary story of Medea. She had married Aegeus, king of Athens, and had a son, Medus, by him only to face the return of her husband’s long-lost biological son, Theseus, and the prospect of Medus being totally upstaged by him. To prevent her son from losing his inheritance to his half-brother, Medea attempted to poison Theseus; when this failed, she and Medus had to leave and fend for themselves. This sort of outcome would have been unlikely in real life, however, as records of court cases (from Athens, for instance) clearly reveal that younger half-siblings had rights and frequently engaged in legal disputes over inheritance with their older half-siblings. In addition, again as at Athens, male and female half-siblings had the right to marry, yet another method of blending the two sides of the family together amicably. In many Greek communities, adopted sons were frequently expected to marry their stepsisters, the biological daughters of their now-common parents, in order to firm up the bonds between the adopted and the natural family members. Unlike today, most of those adopted in ancient Greek communities were themselves adult male citizens, not children, relatives much more often than true outsiders to the family, and shared more or less the same socioeconomic status as their adoptive fathers, rather than coming from underprivileged or other troubled backgrounds. Adoption thus made Greek families blended with the addition typically of sons, but sometimes of daughters. Also, unlike a modern family, in which one might find older, natural sons and younger, adoptive sons, Greek parents who already had heirs in the form of sons would not adopt another. Even if adoptive parents should have sons of their own after adopting a son, the latter would remain a full member of the family. Then, there were the cases of stepparents falling in love with their stepchildren, as in the legendary story of Phaedra. She married Theseus as his second wife but fell in love with his son, her stepson, Hippolytus. Afterwards, by one path or another, Hippolytus ended up dead and, according to some versions, Phaedra herself committed suicide in guilt-ridden grief. The essential story of a

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stepmother falling in love with a stepson was a not unlikely—and probably not uncommon—occurrence in ancient Greece, considering that Greek women typically married at a young age to men who might have already been married at least once before and who might have had sons old enough to become involved with the new wife. Indeed, since Greek women were likely to marry more than once up until age thirty (the typical close of their childbearing years), especially because of the earlier deaths of their older spouses, and since Greek men appear to have been reluctant to remain single, even after divorce or the loss of a spouse, there was always this possibility that a relatively young wife would live under the same roof with a stepson around her age, a temptation difficult to resist. Finally, there were the cases of those “forced” into a “stepparent” relationship by the philandering of their spouses; in the mythological world, this was the quintessential story of Hera and her relationship as stepmother to many children fathered out of wedlock by her husband Zeus. She did not much like her stepson Dionysus, playing an instrumental role in the death of the child’s mother, Semele, and she famously hated her stepson Heracles, who was plagued by Hera’s attempts to destroy him physically and emotionally. In the real Greek world, stepmothers would have had to face similar challenges when husbands cheated on them with other women, free (though typically foreign) or slave. The offspring of such relationships, deemed nothoi (sing. nothos) in Greek, “bastards,” could neither participate in family rituals nor be recognized as true members of the family, but they could in many communities claim a share of their father’s estate as heirs of the second degree (that is, after legitimate children) if the father had passed away without leaving a will. In addition, many Greek communities recognized children born out of wedlock as citizens (unless there was a rule in place insisting that citizenship passed only from two full-citizen parents, as in Athens from the middle of the fifth century BCE). Although many city-states followed the Athenian example in the later fifth century BCE and into the fourth century BCE, such restrictions fell out of favor in Hellenistic times (c. 323–30 BCE), meaning that many such unofficial stepchildren functioned as full citizens just like their half-siblings born legitimately. Nothoi born to a married man had no legal means of blending into his legitimate family, unless the father formally adopted them into it. This was technically possible (though uncommon because of the damage it would cause to the wife’s dignity), and it gave such children better prospects than those born out of wedlock to a woman. A child in the latter circumstance legally belonged to its father, who could order it to be exposed or even sold into slavery. Indeed, a woman found pregnant out of wedlock might herself attempt to abort the pregnancy or prepare to abandon or sell her child once it was born, since it would never be accepted into her

Family and Gender: Blended Families

father’s or her husband’s family. Illegitimate children, then, would have brought instability to the legitimate family more often than blending into it. Members of some ancient Greek families also developed relationships with their slaves; any children produced in this way were still regarded as slaves, belonging to the owner (usually the kyrios, or head of household) of the slave parent. Such children might be blended into the family of that owner, participating in familial activities and being raised right alongside their half-siblings born legitimately, if the slave child’s father belonged to that family. The Greeks paid a lot of attention to all these distinctions among siblings; whether they were full (autadelphoi), only paternal siblings (homopatrioi), or only maternal siblings (homogastrioi) mattered a great deal in terms of the law, especially inheritance law, and in terms of acceptance within the family and in the wider society. See also: Economics and Work: Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Extended Family; Fathers; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Sons; Housing and Community: Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Primary Documents: Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998 Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphreys, S. C. 1993. The Family, Women and Death. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. McGinn, T. A. J. 2008. Widows and Patriarchy: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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BURIAL According to Greek belief, the psyche¯, or soul, of a deceased relative or friend demanded proper burial of its soˉma, or body; this would partly console the psyche¯ on its journey into the afterlife. Improper burial, or worse yet, no burial at all, would release the spirit from the underworld as a ghost to terrorize the human world or even unleash the Erinyes, or Furies, goddesses whose job it was to punish those who neglected the proper burial of loved ones. Proper burial began with customs that dated back, according to the Greeks, to the time of their storied heroes. Since they did not have any such thing as funeral homes, mortuaries, or morticians, those closest to the deceased, usually relatives or friends, performed all the rites of burial. If the deceased passed away in his or her hometown, or if the corpse could be recovered soon enough after death to bring it back there, the process began where the deceased had lived. Loved ones would first close the deceased’s eyes and mouth, both symbolic of the quiet sleep of death. Before closing the mouth, though, they would place a small coin (often an obol) inside it, the fare for safe passage from this world to the next across the mythical rivers of the underworld. Next, the corpse was washed, anointed with oil and perhaps perfume, and dressed in white garments or wrapped in a white shroud; these actions, performed usually by one’s female loved ones, together symbolized and reemphasized the physical, moral, and ritual purity of the deceased. The head was left uncovered unlike the rest of the body, but was usually crowned with flowers or wreaths of sacred greenery. The foot of the cushioned, wooden couch upon which the corpse was then laid was deliberately positioned to face the doorway of the home, since the body would soon be exiting the world of the living through that threshold. Mourners, either personally close to the deceased or hired professionals, then began to lament over the body; this often took on a programmed tone, consisting of regular chants. Individual, emotional outbursts of loved ones, such as crying, screaming, raising of arms above the head in a sort of delirium, and even the scratching of face and arms to release blood, were not out of the ordinary, though they might be prohibited or restricted in one way or another by local regulations. Such lamentation went on throughout the course of the lying in state, which lasted several, if not many, days, depending usually on the status of the deceased and the laws of one’s community. For instance, at Athens, the famous reformer Solon was given credit for establishing limits on the length of the lying in state, as part of his

Family and Gender: Burial

general prohibitions against overindulgence. Still, custom across the Greek world demanded some sort of exhibition of the body, probably in origin a pragmatic means for making sure that the person was truly dead. After the corpse had been sufficiently exhibited, giving people who knew or valued the deceased the opportunity to pay their respects, the funeral itself took place. Male mourners, sometimes loved ones but frequently hired, led the funeral procession with their chanting, accompanied by the doleful strains of female flutists; the male friends and relatives of the deceased cut their hair and dressed in black or grey to demonstrate their grief. The pallbearers followed, carrying the deceased on a bier, basically a wooden board with hand-holds. Female relatives, especially the elderly, came last, again often in formal lamentation. Common to most Greek states was the practice of burying their dead outside the limits of their communities; in these extra-mural (outside the walls) cemeteries, Greeks practiced both inhumation and cremation; the choice depended on each family’s own traditions, as well as those of their city-state, and, commonly, such choices originated in the resources available for one type of burial or the other. In Athens, for instance, it seems that inhumation largely became the norm because of the scarcity of timber for funeral pyres. Across the Greek world, cremation was more common, however, probably because of concerns regarding health and sanitation. A final ritual of blessing the deceased took place just after the inhumation or cremation. In the case of the former, a libation of wine or oil might be poured onto the gravesite as a last offering to the spirit of the dead, followed by the adorning of the gravesite with flowers, garlands, or ribbons. In the case of the latter, the pyre was ritually extinguished with the libation of wine, after which the ashes, too, were sprinkled with wine as well as oil. Ashes were gathered in various receptacles, such as bronze urns or lead boxes, for interment similar to that practiced with inhumation. Grave markers ranged from the simple to the elaborately carved and inscribed; mourners typically left an enlarged lekythos, or oil jug, at the grave site as a remembrance of the burial ceremony, as well as other objects particular to the deceased (for instance, to mark the grave of a young woman who had died—unfortunately— unmarried, a loutrophoros, or water vessel, used otherwise in weddings). The funeral ended with the perideipnon, the meal shared by those who had taken part in the funeral procession. They all returned to their starting point, the home of the deceased, for this event. Burial could not take place for someone convicted of murder nor for someone deemed a traitor to his or her country; the playwright Sophocles dealt with both of these issues in a most celebrated way in his Antigone (where the heroine buries her traitorous brother regardless of the “laws of man”) and in his Oedipus at Colonus (where the Athenian king offers a “resting place” of sorts to the murderous, incestuous hero).

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In wartime, competing Greek forces had a custom of handing over one another’s war dead under truce and usually with few demands. The most scandalous exception happened in the aftermath of the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE), when the Macedonians demanded ransom in exchange for the corpses of the fallen soldiers from Thebes but no ransom for those from Athens, even though both cities were defeated enemies. In fact, the prince of Macedon, Alexander, personally returned the Athenian war dead for burial with honors. Most of those killed in combat received burial back in their home city, if at all possible, but there were cases when interment took place on the battlefield itself. In the aftermath of the Battle of Marathon (490 BCE), for instance, the victorious Athenians cremated their war dead and interred their remains together on the battlefield itself in a single burial mound fifty meters in diameter and nine meters tall. (They placed the bodies of their fallen Persian enemies hastily in trenches, also on the field of battle.) In contrast, the Greek soldiers who fell at Thermopylae (480 BCE), especially the 300 Spartans, received no burial at all for forty years, when their remains were finally claimed. In such a case, that is, of being unable to reclaim the bodies of one’s dead, a community (or a family) would often construct an empty tomb as at least some form of commemoration. Furthermore, a community might erect a monument to honor those lost on a battlefield far from home, as the Athenians did for the fallen at Potidaea (432 BCE). Burial held crucial importance in ancient Greek society. Families, friends, and whole communities regarded it as a sacred duty, not to be shirked, to see to the proper burial of their deceased, whether at home or abroad. See also: Arts: Music; Rhetoric; Theater, Tragedy; Family and Gender: Death and Dying; Men; Mourning/Memorialization; Women; Food and Drink: Meals; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings FURTHER READING Boardman, J., and D. Kurtz. 1971. Greek Burial Customs. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Morris, I. 1987. Burial and Ancient Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morris, I. 1992. Death-Ritual and Social Structures in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Family and Gender: Childbirth and Infancy

CHILDBIRTH AND INFANCY Successful childbirth and healthy infancy were crucial socioeconomically and culturally in the ancient Greek world. New additions to the ancient Greek family meant more companionship within the tightly knit bonds of such families; it meant more labor contributed to the family’s work and more support for parents in their old age; it also meant heirs to the family’s worldly possessions and the continuation of the family’s traditions and memories from the past into the future. As in developing nations today, the ancient Greeks evidently had a high fertility rate. The need for more children to offset the many threats (malnutrition, disease, warfare, and so on) to the survival of any one child, together with an apparently low incidence of contraception (despite the availability of many methods), generated this high rate. Marriage patterns among the ancient Greeks, in which a much younger woman typically married a man close to twice her age, suggest a desire for maximizing the chances for each couple of attaining at least four or five births. The ancient Greeks, or at least those authors among them versed in medicine, debated the respective “genetic” contributions made by parents to the conception of children. The philosopher Aristotle represents one camp with his argument that the mother only serves as a sort of incubator and provider of blood, nutrients, and other materials to the fetus, which grows from the father’s “seed” alone. Other Greeks, like the unidentified fifth-century BCE author of the Hippocratic texts On Generating the Seed and On the Nature of the Child, asserted that both the mother and the father produce “seeds,” which combine to create the embryo and to determine the traits within the fetus. Unlike today’s medical advice, that the middle period in a woman’s menstrual cycle proves optimal for conception, the ancient Greeks believed that the womb would be closed at that time. Instead, Greek medicine recommended the start of the menstrual cycle, when they believed the womb to be wide open, as the best for conception. They also believed that women could feel the closing up of their wombs and even the retention of the implanted embryo. Ancient Greek medical writers speculated wildly on the topic of gestation. They could guess at the process with the aid of analogies (like Aristotle’s careful, daily observation of the development of chicks inside their eggs), but could only wonder about how it worked. Did the fetus simply grow from small size to big size, having all of its parts from the start? Were certain parts added along the way and in what manner? Was their differentiation within the embryo to produce its varied structures (for instance, Aristotle posited that the heart was the first organ to emerge)? How did it inherit particular traits? How did parents pass on particular disabilities or did they arise from some cause within the embryo? How long did essential fetal development take (some said only seven days, while others said

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three months for boys or four months for girls)? When was the embryo first alive? These sorts of questions, and many others, intrigued the Greeks. One of the most commonly discussed of such questions was how a child acquired its gender. Within the Hippocratic texts, for instance, there were different answers posited to this question. There was the assertion, for instance, that each parent emitted uneven amounts of “stronger” and “weaker” “seed” during conception. Too much “weaker seed” led to a female child, too much “stronger seed” led to a male child. There was also the assertion that the mother’s womb consisted of a warmer zone and a colder zone; a fetus in the warmer zone would be born male, in the colder zone, female. The ancient Greeks attempted to predict the sex of the child from various observations. For instance, if a pregnant woman had poor color and swollen legs, this indicated a female child was on the way; if she carried the baby more toward her left side than toward her right, this also indicated she would give birth to a girl. They also claimed that pregnancy was always more difficult in the case of girl babies than boy babies. Greek medicine advised a pregnant woman to avoid agitation of the womb. Medical writers recommended that she eat bland foods, especially to cope with morning sickness; once that passed or lessened, she should eat more, they said, and even give in to cravings (kissai). Exercise should be engaged in cautiously between the second and seventh months. During their ninth month of pregnancy, women were advised to take it easy as much as possible and to soothe their bodies by regularly bathing in warm water. Ancient Greek medical writers record pregnancies lasting anywhere from seven to twelve months. They generally express a belief that birth in the seventh, ninth, or tenth months made an infant’s chances of survival greater; birth in the eighth month, however, was considered a bad omen for the child. The anatomist Herophilus (third century BCE) demonstrated that the uterus was a muscle, which allowed some Greek physicians (like Soranus in the early second century CE or Galen in the early third century CE) to understand that the pains in a pregnant woman’s abdomen and lower extremities, and the sensation of something dropping within her, were caused by contractions of the uterus pushing out her child. Yet the general notion among most Greeks, including most physicians (like the author of On the Nature of the Child ), was that the uterus was nothing more than a bottle. They thus explained labor pains as caused by the movement of the fetus breaking free through the inner membranes of the womb; a newborn emerged, they thought, because it was hungry for more nutrition than the mother could provide internally after ten months of gestation. Greek writers also generally believed that male babies were easier to deliver than females because the former were more active and healthier within the womb. They understood more accurately

Family and Gender: Childbirth and Infancy

that prolonged labor not only meant a difficult birth but also a possible stillbirth or the coming of more than one baby (as illustrated in the Hippocratic treatise On the Diseases of Women). Women in labor were attended by other women, especially midwives. Such women usually had much experience, personal and otherwise, of childbirth; some had medical training in addition, while most brought a substantial tradition of folk remedies and superstitions with them. The ideal scenario, according to Soranus (an expert on gynecology), was to have three midwives, equipped with all the instruments and other necessities (hot water, salves, painkillers, medicines, Fragment of a small marble relief depicting a goddess and so on) the expectant mother standing before a new mother and a midwife or might require. The midwives wet nurse (who holds the newborn child), late fifth should keep the woman in labor century BCE. Ancient Greeks frequently dedicated votive offerings like this one to thank the gods for on a comfortable bed until it was their assistance in the safe delivery of a healthy child time for delivery, said Soranus; and the survival of the mother in the dangerous then, when she was fully dilated, conditions of childbirth. (The Metropolitan Museum they should move her to a birth- of Art/Fletcher Fund, 1924) ing-chair where she would sit upright with the assistance of two of the midwives. The third, and most expert, midwife, would squat in front of the woman waiting to catch the newborn as it emerged. Women gave birth at home; the Greeks had no clinics or hospitals. Doctors (virtually all men in the ancient Greek world as far as scholars can ascertain) only came in to treat serious complications in the birthing process, such as the saving of breeched births or otherwise trapped babies or the removal of dead ones. They did not engage in what are today called Caesarean or C-sections; such surgery would have been too physically traumatic for the mother in the absence of modern antiseptics and anesthetics. Physicians like Soranus may have disapproved of the folk remedies and even magic that midwives practiced during the birthing process, but this did not stop it

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from happening. Besides, the Greeks always hedged births with supernatural aids, especially prayers to the goddesses, like Artemis, Hera, the Fates, and the primeval Minoan Eileithyia (popular in the Peloponnese, on Crete and the Cyclades). The character of Medea in a play by the Athenian tragedian Euripides says that she would rather stand three times in the frontline of battle than undergo the pains of childbirth even once. This should not be surprising when we consider not only the difficulties of the birthing process itself in ancient times but also the dangers to the mother afterward. Perhaps 10 to 20 percent of ancient Greek mothers died in childbirth, not from infection (which was less of a factor in Greek-style homebirthing than one might assume) but from being too young or not healthy enough, from exhaustion or internal hemorrhaging, even from convulsive fits. Infant mortality stood even higher, perhaps 30 to 40 percent. According to Aristotle, the highest risk was during the first week of the child’s life. Surviving weaning would give the child a good chance at a longer life, the Greeks believed. Then there was also the decision of the infant’s father (or the tribal elders in the odd case of Sparta) whether to raise the child at all or to expose it; at greatest risk of such rejection were girls, illegitimate, disabled, or slave children. In the end, scholars estimate that perhaps one-third of all ancient Greek children died before reaching age five and perhaps one-half before reaching age ten. The ancient Greeks coped with these traumas, and their evidently impending nature, by praying ardently to goddesses dubbed Kourotrophos (nurturer of children) as well as by handing their children over to wet nurses and slave caregivers whenever possible (and affordable); the former placed the fate of their newborns in divine hands, while the latter seems to have created an emotional distance between parents and newborns. Yet medical writers emphasized the physical and even moral benefits of maternal breastfeeding; they labeled mothers as bad, lazy, neglectful, and self-centered if not doing so and they warned about the maternal bonds lost without maternal breastfeeding. Yet wet nursing remained very typical, perhaps as a form of shared child-rearing. Scholars possess very little source material on what infancy was like among the ancient Greeks. Medical writers asserted that babies were an odd imbalance of humors (the essential liquid substances that they believed regulated the body’s health), a mix of “warm” and “cold” humors differing from the “dry” condition of a healthy adult. They also noted particular diseases and illnesses that seemed to affect infants alone. Otherwise, playwrights, like Aeschylus, described infants as animals unable to speak or think, while philosophers, even the likes of Plato and Aristotle, regarded them as too needy and, therefore, unwise! Basically, they were not “functioning” members of society yet and so not really respected much. There is precious little recorded evidence of the sort of doting on babies so common in the modern West (something not necessarily customary around the

Family and Gender: Childbirth and Infancy

world even today). Yet the ancient Greeks immediately posted birth notices (a flock of wool for a daughter, an olive wreath for a son) outside the doors of their homes. Greek tradition expected parents (primarily the father) to name and formally accept the new child (hence, the third- and ninth-day ceremonies, ta trita kai ta enata) and to introduce it to the community through rituals such as the Amphidromia and Dekate¯. These rites of passage converted the infant, in a sense, into a recognized member of the family and the community. Ancient Greeks engaged in other, very familiar behaviors toward their babies. They wrapped their newborns in swaddling clothes, placed them in cradles (made of wickerwork and resembling either a shallow picnic basket or a more tightly constructed giant shoe with handles), prepared baby food for them consisting of honey and other soft ingredients, and sang them lullabies (baukale¯mata). As depicted on Greek painted pottery, they even placed infants in high chairs. Some high chairs were equipped with chamber pots; little babies are shown in painted scenes with their feet dangling out through holes in the upper pot atop the lower pot acting as a stand and a catch basin! The ancient Greeks dedicated many prayers and sanctuaries to divine forces that would specifically protect and promote childbirth. They regarded childbirth as an event of significant concern to the gods and to society at large, not just a biological occurrence or something important to the family alone. By the same token, they valued their infants, the promise of the future, while also keeping a certain distance from them for emotional and societal reasons. The ancient Greeks did not give babies the sort of prominence more common in modern times. See also: Arts: Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Midwives and Wet Nurses; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Childhood and Youth; Daughters; Fathers; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Play; Sons; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Health and Illness; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Primary Documents: Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Cohen, A., and J. B. Butler, eds. 2007. Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Dean-Jones, L.-A. 1994. Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life. London: Duckworth.

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CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH The religious-philosophical sect known as Pythagoreans divided the human lifespan into four stages; physicians and others following the Hippocratic tradition divided it into seven stages. Most Greeks seem to have divided the lifespan of human beings into three broad stages: childhood ( paideia), youth (neote¯s), and old age (ge¯ras). Despite their apparent fascination with youthfulness, especially in terms of its physical strengths and attractiveness, the ancient Greeks did not elevate childhood as an ideal state of bliss, something to miss when one grows older, as many modern societies now do. Indeed, philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, grouped children along with slaves, women, the insane, and the disabled; they regarded them as similarly undisciplined and irrational, prone to amoral or immoral behaviors, and too incompetent to function in society in the way of full-blown (male) citizens. Aristotle went so far as to write that only someone without any sense at all would wish to return to his youth. Childhood was regarded as the stage in life before puberty and physical maturation; Greek communities placed this transition anywhere from the ages of twelve to eighteen, most commonly around fourteen years old. In addition, childhood was characterized by the general absence of reason (logos), that is, as lacking in the mental attributes of common sense and rational decision-making. Since the Greeks firmly believed that age produced intelligence and wisdom, children could never be wiser or smarter than adults. Furthermore, childhood was defined as the period before full citizenship, at least for males; male children could not do the things that male adults could do, such as vote, hold office, serve in the military or in public capacities, represent themselves at court, or own a business or land. This did not apply to citizen women; in many poleis, they remained legally in the status of what we would call “minors” even after puberty, marriage, and so on. Ancient Greek sources further subdivide children into two groups, paidiontes (youngsters from weening roughly at age two until about age seven) and paides (children age seven until puberty at about age fourteen). Male and female paidiontes

Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth

remained at home, spending their time with the women of the family; for instance, at Athens, they would have passed their young lives in the gynaikoˉnitis, the women’s quarters within the home (where such separation of the sexes was financially feasible). At Sparta, male paides, referred to as the boua, or herd, were removed from home and from the care of their families and placed under the tutelage of public officials as part of the formal training program (agoˉge¯) of the city-state. In most other Greek communities, male and female paides still lived at home, but began to follow ever-more separate routines as they were prepared by the men and women, respectively, of their families for the responsibilities of adulthood. As paides, and perhaps even as paidiontes, the majority of ancient Greek boys and girls worked alongside their parents, whether in the farmyard or in the shop; they probably started working from about age five. Even such families who had slaves would have seen their own children working at the same tasks as slave children. Only wealthy families could afford to allow the labor power of their children to be squandered. Moreover, the Greeks regarded their children as family assets; as such, children from any socioeconomic level might be utilized as collateral for loans, might work for a creditor to pay off their parents’ debt, or even live with the creditor as a sort of financial hostage until the parents had discharged their obligation. Surviving information on loan contracts reveals a variety of terms for such arrangements, though one year or more appears to have been typical. Many paides, then, likely spent a number of years working for or living with strangers. Although it is hard to tell how often strict discipline was enforced with regard to children, ancient Greek writings express the expectation that it be enforced, even to the point of permitting strangers on the street to do so. Corporal punishment inside and outside the home was normal. Still, many Greek communities morally condemned and legal punished those who physically abused (variously defined) children of free status; ancient Greek writings express no such taboos or regulations against the physical abuse of slave children. Childhood in the ancient Greek world might seem tough, but it did have its compensations. Greek children found time to sing songs and play all sorts of games and with a variety of handmade toys. The fun times of childhood are vividly depicted in little paintings on the choes, or children’s drinking jugs, used in the Anthesteria festival at Athens, for example. Children also developed close, loving relationships, not only with parents, siblings, and other members of their extended or blended families but also with nannies who acted as governesses and pedagogues who guided them to and from school (and tutored them along the way), especially in more well-off families. Moreover, Greek boys and girls participated in special and essential roles in religious festivals and in public ceremonies. At Athens alone, they contributed in

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a variety of ways to the Aiora, the Anthesteria, the Eleusinia, and the Panathenaia. The ancient Greeks regarded children as ritually purer than adults in the religious context (since, unlike adults, children did not shed blood in warfare or sacrifices, or bleed themselves through menstruation, and so on). Those children who still had two living parents (referred to as paides amphithales) were seen as the most desirable for religious ceremonies because they had had no contact with death within their most intimate familial circle. Pubescent children/adolescents (those past puberty but not yet married, as the Greeks would have defined it), whether a male Small terracotta wine jug, or oenochoe or chous, (meirakion, neaniskos, kouros) showing one little child pushing another in a cart, or a female (meirax, parthenos, c. 440–420 BCE. Such objects were used in the kore¯), fell within the transitional Anthesteria festival at Athens, where children received their first ceremonial taste of wine, and realm between childhood (   paitypically illustrated children at play with each other deia) and youth (neote¯s). We and a variety of toys. (The Metropolitan Museum of should note here that the latter Art/Rogers Fund, 1941) term could be applied even to adults as old as age thirty (still seen as “new guys”), so that neote¯s itself overlapped with two other categories, ephe¯beia (postpubescent young adulthood, roughly ages eighteen to nineteen) and he¯likia (maturity, roughly ages seventeen or eighteen to forty-five). Young Greeks prayed to an actual goddess of puberty and adolescence, Hebe, daughter of Hera and Zeus (and wife of the deified Heracles). Many older children/ young adults underwent religious puberty rituals (like the arkteia ceremony for Athenian girls at Brauron) and dedicated to the gods their childhood belongings, such as toys, as they transitioned into adult life. The Greeks regarded the meirakion and the meirax as potentially threatening to social stability because of their burgeoning sexuality and troublesome recklessness; they sought to keep these young people occupied and encourage in them

Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth

socially beneficial behaviors. Among most families, the period of pubescent/ adolescent youth consisted primarily of work. For females, there was also marriage to prepare for, which might take place even when a meirax or parthenos (virgin) was only just fourteen; for males, military training and service, as well as training for civic life through study of music, rhetoric, philosophy, literature, and so on at the gymnasia, entered into the picture (especially as ephe¯boi), with marriage a still-distant event on the horizon. Among elite families, the age parameters and expectations differed a bit, owing to the responsibilities that could come earlier to a young heir or heiress to wealth. Life expectancy in the ancient Greek world is difficult to calculate with available evidence; scholars estimate a rough average of thirty-five years for women and forty-four years for men. With childhood and youth thus constituting some 40 percent of an individual’s lifetime, one could not fritter them away without paying a heavy price. Moreover, children were essential mainstays for parents in their work and in their old age, while adolescents formed the crucial link between the traditions of the family and its future (including its ties through marriage to other families). It is true that ancient Greek biographers paid little attention to childhood experiences, giving them relatively little weight in their analyses of the development of adult character, just as it is true that ancient Greek artists often did not depict children as anything more than miniaturized adults. Yet they did depict them (and, indeed, more often by Hellenistic times), and Greek authors did tell stories about them (again, more so by Hellenistic times), and Greek legislators did enact laws pertaining to them. Indeed, ancient Greek literature and epigraphic sources reveal not only quite a lot of desire for having or adopting children, but also much affection for them. They did not lead the easiest lives, but they were loved dearly by their parents. Despite certain societal expectations that may have prevented or discouraged the latter from the sort of outpouring of feeling toward the young found more typically in modern contexts, all one need do is look at the epitaphs and funerary poems extant from the Greek world to realize how much adults missed the children for whom they mourned. See also: Arts: Dance; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Painting, Pottery; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Cloth-Making; Debt; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Childbirth and Infancy; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Extended Family; Fathers; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Play;

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Sexuality; Sons; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Hoplite Soldiers; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries; Science and Technology: Education FURTHER READING Cohen, A., and J. B. Butler, eds. 2007. Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Dean-Jones, L.-A. 1994. Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life. London: Duckworth. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Classical Athens. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. London: Duckworth. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, H. 1998. Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Kleijwegt, M. 1991. Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Klein, A. E. 1932. Child Life in Greek Art. New York: Columbia University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Neils, J., and J. H. Oakley, eds. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CLANS/GENEˉ Ancient Greeks used the word genos (plur. gene¯) when referring to any sort of group that shared a common background or common characteristics. When it came to a group of people, this might mean a whole community that consisted of its original founders and their descendants or it might mean a particular set of relatives who had the same ancestry. In the latter context, elite Greek families (oikoi, sing. oikos) often linked themselves together through “strategic” marriages to create gene¯; these “clans” clearly created common ties of ancestry, often defended through traditions of exclusive intermarriage, and they further solidified their connections by establishing rights of inheritance to common property and especially common religious rituals as well. People of other statuses might also belong to

Family and Gender: Clans/Geneˉ

clans, but those of the elite received by far the most attention in ancient sources and stuck together the most to achieve much-desired outcomes. Going back to the Greek Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE), evidence indicates that the genos, apparently of whatever social status, served as an important player in the pursuit of justice in Greek society. In those days, a dispute among members of the same clan, or between members of separate clans, would have been arbitrated by representatives of the clan, or clans, involved. If such arbitration had not been deemed sufficient, for instance, in the case of more serious offenses, or had not been accepted by either party, clan representatives would have supervised the trials by combat that would have been required to prove the innocence of or exact satisfaction from the “defendant.” Members of one’s clan might even have been called upon to champion one’s cause; in the case of someone murdered, for example, a clan member might have been obliged to gain retribution in place of the deceased fellow clansman. Similar obligations on the part of such gennetai continued into the later periods of Greek history, despite the further development of legal systems that mitigated such private justice in a variety of ways. For example, at Athens, the tradition of anchisteia tou genous, “nearness of kinship,” not only guaranteed that relatives on one’s father’s and mother’s side (down to children of first cousins) had rights of inheritance (provided there were no closer relations) and influenced the choice of marriage partners for women inheriting estates, but also reaffirmed that close relations in one’s genos had the responsibility of either prosecuting or pardoning one’s murderer. Under a related set of duties, members of one’s genos, in the absence of immediate family, also arranged and participated in one’s funeral and burial. (We might consider the legal evidence left by the Athenian clan of the Bouselidai in this context). The clans of the elite in ancient Greece appear prominently in historical events, especially in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE). About two hundred members of the Bacchiad genos in Corinth, for instance, shared the rule of that prosperous city-state for nearly a century; their wealth and commercial activity promoted their clan, as well as their homeland. One of the Bacchiads, often the eldest living clansman, would serve annually as prytanis, or chief executive, to carry out daily affairs and religious duties, while another did so as polemarch, or commander-inchief and collector of fines, and the rest sat on the ruling council. Members of the Bacchiad genos also appear prominently in the foundation narratives of several Corinthian colonies. Female Bacchiads inherited family privileges and rights and would transfer them to their husbands, which did not really mean much, since the Bacchiads almost always intermarried among themselves anyway. A famous case of when they did not was that of Cypselus, son of a Bacchiad mother, but fathered by an outsider to bring new blood into the clan; in the long run, Cypselus overthrew

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his own clan with the support of aristocrats from other prominent families and established himself as dictator (tyrannos). Despite exiling his fellow gennetai, the tyrant Cypselus passed his power along to descendants both at home and elsewhere, which essentially kept the traditions and the bloodline of the Bacchiad clan alive and prominent across central and southern Greece. One of his daughters, for instance, married into the prominent Philaid genos of Athens. This clan included famous war heroes like the general Miltiades, victor against the Persians at Marathon, and his son, Cimon, a key commander in the Greeks’ ongoing struggle against the Persians. The personal life of Miltiades well illustrates the opportunities opened up through kinship in a clan: thanks to his uncle, he eventually became ruler of the Thracian Chersonese (today’s Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey), which made him enormously wealthy and politically influential, and not just back in Athens; he apparently married twice, once into the royalty of Thrace and once into the highest echelons of Athenian society. Cimon followed in his father’s footsteps, not just in terms of a great military career but also in terms of marrying well into the Athenian Alcmaeonid clan. That genos produced some of the most prominent figures in Athenian history over the course of nearly two hundred years, especially Cleisthenes (founder or re-founder, according to some, of the democracy), Pericles (statesman, general, and instigator of the Peloponnesian War against Sparta), and Alcibiades (hero and intriguer in that war and friend of Socrates). The Alcmaeonids competed for power, influence, land, and wealth with the Philaids and other gene¯ who belonged to what Athenians called the Eupatridai, the blue-blooded aristocratic families. Often heralding themselves as enemies of “tyranny,” the Alcmaeonids nevertheless seem to have made a habit every so often of allying or intermarrying with tyrants, both at Athens and abroad, to enhance their own position vis-à-vis the other elite gene¯. They are perhaps the best known, and perhaps the most colorful, of the ancient Greek clans about which we possess evidence. Certainly, the most respected gene¯ in the ancient Greek world, however, were those privileged to administer sacred rituals generation after generation for the gods. These included priestly clans like the Branchidae who served Apollo at Didyma (whom the Persians expelled in the fifth century BCE), the Eumolpidae and the Kerykes who served Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis (the former doing so until the end of the fourth century CE), the Kephalidai who served Apollo at Daphni (between downtown Athens and Eleusis), and the Eteoboutadae, who could trace their ancestry back farther than any of the other Eupatrids at Athens. On the famous Acropolis, a male member of this clan served as the priest of Poseidon and a female member served as the priestess of Athena. Nothing could have brought greater honor to any genos, yet one of its later members, the statesmen Lycurgus, added political fame to the clan’s reputation as the guiding force behind his

Family and Gender: Daughters

city-state’s prosperity and strategic survival in the era of Alexander the Great’s rise to dominance. Many of the old Greek gene¯ may have died out or faded into obscurity during Hellenistic and Roman times, but the tradition of the clan and its important functions in society did not completely disappear, especially among the elite. Indeed, the Hellenistic elites, with their penchant for intermarriage, created some of the most complicated clans, continuing many of the customs (especially religious) associated with the earlier gene¯. See also: Family and Gender: Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Daughters; Extended Family; Fathers; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Sons; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Councils; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries; Priests and Priestesses; Primary Documents: Pindar Celebrates a Wrestling Champion (c. 463 BCE) FURTHER READING Broadbent, M. 1968. Studies in Greek Genealogy. Leiden: Brill. Cox, C. 1998. Household Interests. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.C. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Humphreys, S. C. 1993. The Family, Women and Death. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lavelle, B. M. 2005. Fame, Money, and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and “Democratic” Tyranny at Athens. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. MacKendrick, P. 1969. The Athenian Aristocracy, 399–31 B.C. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Salmon, J. B. 1984. Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., ed. 2000. Peisistratos and the Tyranny: A Reappraisal of the Evidence. Amsterdam: Gieben.

DAUGHTERS Daughters (thugateres, sing. thugate¯r) served critical economic and social roles in the world of the ancient Greeks. They were at once loved and appreciated on an emotional level and utilized in the most pragmatic ways.

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Modern scholars believe that ancient Greek families attempted to limit the number of daughters they had, either through exposure or other forms of abortion or abandonment. Despite the emotional trauma of doing this, limiting the number of daughters would have been seen as beneficial mainly because they carried with them in most Greek communities a greater financial burden upon families than sons did. Fathers or other guardians were expected to dower the young women under their authority when they married, giving them movable property or money; this would have presented a hardship for many families in the case of having several daughters because most families lived at more or less subsistence level. In comparison, sons inherited the family landholdings, which were regarded as the primary investment of the family and would not have been regarded as “lost.” As in the case of sons, daughters belonged to their fathers and were identified by patronymic (daughter of so and so); at Athens, they also carried their father’s demotic (daughter of so and so, from the deme such and such). Daughters received patrilineal names; for example, the first daughter was typically named after her paternal grandmother. Patterns from epitaphs in Athens suggest that 14 percent of daughters there (as compared to 26 percent of sons) had names derived from the root of their father’s own name. Families also had traditional names for their daughters, like Agariste among the aristocratic Alcmaeonids of Athens, or names beginning with particular roots, like the root “Lys-” frequently found in the names of the Eteoboutadae priestesses of Athena Polias. If they received any education at all, which depended entirely on the will and financial wherewithal of their parents, daughters in ancient Greece would never have been educated alongside boys. At Athens, for instance, the traditional goal of parents was to keep daughters under strict supervision and prevent any illicit encounters between them and the opposite sex, which could lead to illegitimate children when they reached puberty. Friendships for daughters outside the home, then, would have come in the form of female classmates at school and, even more likely for a larger segment of the young female population at Athens and elsewhere, within the choruses in which they performed with other young girls at annual festivals in honor of gods and goddesses like Athena, Hera, Artemis, and Dionysus. Otherwise, the social interaction of daughters was limited to members of their own family, and especially limited when it came to having connections with males outside that family. Although some modern scholars dispute it, most believe that an Athenian father would bring his daughter of about age sixteen to his phratry, a mutual aid society and brotherhood of Athenian men, where the ceremony of the apatouria (ritual first haircutting) was performed. This marked the initial stage of the daughter’s entry into womanhood. If she had had any schooling, it stopped then. Instead,

Family and Gender: Daughters

she prepared for imminent marriage to whomever her parents or guardians deemed an appropriate match. Within the family structure, unmarried daughters might serve as managers of property, finances, and businesses, making and witnessing wills, and even carry out quite independent transactions as stewards of the household in the absence of male relatives. Besides, the penchant for frequent warfare among Greek men across the generations often left daughters, unmarried and married, as the survivors and principal beneficiaries of their family fortunes; in Hellenistic Sparta, for example, most landed property came to be concentrated in the hands of a few women, like Agesistrata, daughter of King Eudamidas I and Queen Archidamia. As a result, Agesistrata wielded considerable political and financial authority, independent of her own husband, her nephew Eudamidas II. Daughters appear to have continued the ancestral religious practices of their fathers, even when the latter had a male heir to do so. Moreover, curses invoked against parents were visited upon their daughters as well as their sons, sometimes quite explicitly. Even atimia, the formal disgrace of a citizen by his community, might be inherited by daughters and thereby passed on to their male descendants. Daughters were instrumental in ancient Greek society also in the passing on of skills and traditions from one generation to the next. Hedyle of Samos had been taught her poetic skills by her mother, Moschine, who had also been a poet; Hedyle then passed her training on to her son, Hedylus, who became a well- Marble funerary oil flask, or lekythos, depicting a known poet in Alexandria. The deceased Athenian daughter bidding farewell to her father, c. 375–350 BCE. Parents whose children poetess Moero of Byzantium predeceased them frequently placed such memorials acquired some of her talents from at the latter’s graves. In this case, the image carries her father, who was an actor, with it special poignancy since the young woman’s and passed them on to her son, mother sits aside from the main scene offering a little bird as a gift to her surviving younger daughter, Homeros, who acquired even symbolizing everyday life moving on despite grief. more renown than Hedylus as (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1912)

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one of the eight greatest tragic poets of Alexandria. Polygnota of Thebes, daughter of Socrates of Thebes, was honored for her three days of excellent musical performances with the cithara (hand harp) at the Pythian festival (despite the cancellation of other events due to the war against Sulla at the time, 86 BCE). In tremendous gratitude, the organizers of the festival paid Polygnota 500 drachmas and offered proxenia as well as other honors to her and to her descendants in perpetuity! Arete, daughter of the philosopher Socrates’ friend Aristippus, taught her son, Aristippus the Younger, in the ways of philosophy and was a leading member of the Cyrenaic tradition; the latter was fondly referred to as me¯trodidaktos, “mother instructed,” thus revealing philosophy to have been their family’s “business.” Similarly, famous-painter fathers often had famous-painter daughters, as in the cases of Micon the Younger and Timarete, Cratinus and Irene, Nearchus and Aristarete, Nealces and Alexandra, and others. According to the encyclopedist Pliny the Elder, Timarete, for instance, earned notoriety for her painting of the goddess Artemis, while Aristarete did so for her image of the god Asclepius. Ancient Greek daughters could exercise particular political influence as well. Perhaps the prototype in this context would be Gorgo, daughter of King Cleomenes I of Sparta and later wife of his brother Leonidas I. Even as a young child of eight or nine, Gorgo evidently earned the respect of her father for wisdom beyond her years; he accepted her counsel, for instance, in staying out of the Ionian Revolt against Persia, despite the corrupting promise of a large sum of money. She apparently also displayed great pride in her people, as she once remarked that only Spartan women gave birth to real men. Still, in ancient Greek society, parents, technically, had no formal obligation to their married daughters nor did the latter have any obligation to care for their own parents; one might reach the conclusion that daughters were exchanged for daughters-in-law, who brought the profitable alliance of families and otherwise took up some of the varied duties previously performed by biological daughters. Yet the preponderance of available evidence demonstrates that the links between daughters and their natal families were never entirely severed. In point of fact, lifelong, loving relationships between daughters, married or not, and parents are clearly revealed in a variety of sources, especially epitaphs. Around 380 BCE, for instance, the sorrow of a mother and father is shown in their epitaph for the loss of their married daughter Polyxena, herself recently a mother. The mid-fourth century BCE tomb of Myrtis portrays her shaking hands with her already deceased mother Hieroclea, as if they were about to meet in the afterlife; the accompanying inscription records how much joy Myrtis had brought to her husband Moschus and to their children and the matronymic is used (Myrtis, daughter of Hieroclea), indicating the closeness of daughter and mother. In the late fourth century BCE, Timagora and Aristocles took it upon themselves

Family and Gender: Daughters

to have inscribed the epitaph for their deceased daughter Philocydis, whose loss they mourned deeply; they took her daughter, Eucleia, into their care. The poetess Anyte of Tegea in the early third century BCE wrote a funerary poem about Cleina, who cried over the loss of her young daughter, Philaenis. Finally, the daughter and son-in-law of Ampharete erected the latter’s tomb in the late fifth century BCE; on it, they had carved a lovely image of Ampharete seated and wrapping a fold of her garment around a little baby, her daughter’s own daughter, who had died young. Grandmother and granddaughter were thus interred together in the same tomb, the inscription upon it sharing how Ampharete enjoyed watching the sun with the little girl on her knee. A model for this sort of close relationship between daughters and parents can be found in the stories of divine daughters. They held great significance in ancient Greek mythology and ritual as the favorites of their parents. For instance, no god was closer to Zeus than his divine daughter Athena, who had literally sprung from his very head; she alone knew where he kept his powerful lightning bolts and had permission to make use of them herself. Perhaps the most famous of all divine daughters was Persephone, child of Demeter. The latter grieved so much upon the disappearance of her daughter (who had been kidnapped by Hades as his bride) that she could not bear to bring forth any fruits from the earth; the land was plunged into seasons of barrenness until Zeus intervened to reunite mother and daughter for at least a portion of each year. Human daughters played a prominent role in ancient Greek religion as well. Young daughters (between ages five and ten) of citizens specially dedicated themselves to ritual service for the goddesses Artemis (at Athens and Larissa, for example) and Athena (at Argos, for instance); at Athens, such girls were described as arktoi, or “bears,” and at Larissa as nebroi, or “fawns,” which symbolized their still-wild nature before becoming adult women of responsibility. At Athens, the daughters from the myth of Erichthonios (the earthborn warrior-hero of the city) were represented each year by two preadolescent girls, daughters of Athenian citizen parents, who lived temporarily on the Acropolis as young assistants to the priestess of Athena Polias. Each June, during the nighttime fertility festival known as Arrhephoria, these human daughters completed their service to the priestess by means of the ritual transfer of secret objects in sealed baskets between the sacred precinct of Aphrodite in the Gardens and the Acropolis. The position of priestess to Athena Polias was itself passed down among daughters in the aristocratic clan known as the Eteoboutadae. The priestess Phanostrate, for instance, great-niece of Lysimache, passed the office on to her own daughter, named Lysimache the Younger. The world of the ancient Greeks thus reveals a complex, sometimes paradoxical, relationship between daughters and their families. They could bring honor or

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shame, perpetuation or extinction to their families. They often had limited choices in their lives, but daughters made the most of them to achieve meritorious recognition for themselves and their families. See also: Arts: Dance; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Landownership; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Divorce; Extended Family; Fathers; Friendship and Love; Grandparents; Inheritance; Marriage; Men; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Sons; Weddings; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries; Magic; Olympian Gods; Priests and Priestesses; Science and Technology: Education FURTHER READING Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Connelly, J. 2007. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dignas, B., and K. Trampedach, eds. 2008. Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Officials from Homer to Heliodorus. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies. Dillon, M. 2001. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London and New York: Routledge. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphreys, S. C. 1993. The Family, Women and Death. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Kraemer, R. S. 1992. Her Share of the Blessings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Family and Gender: Death and Dying Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

DEATH AND DYING As the fifth century BCE poet Pindar once remarked, death awaits everyone, rich and poor alike; in the next generation, the playwright Euripides would say that life is a debt to destiny, requiring repayment through death. Certainly, people across the ancient Greek world would have agreed with these statements. Still, the particular sort of death one experienced mattered a great deal to the ancient Greeks, probably more, in fact, than dying itself. In the Greek way of thinking, death (Thanatos) was a supernatural force, often personified as a deity of the underworld, who seized one’s life breath (  psyche¯) from one’s body (soˉma) and thereby took one’s mind (nous) and passion (menos), one’s very consciousness (thymos), to another realm of existence, where one’s soul could not truly function in its incorporeal state. Even medical authors drew contrasts between the soˉma and the psyche¯, so that dying was not seen even by most of them as a simple matter of the body shutting down for a physiological reason. Some Greek philosophers considered the psyche¯ to be nothing more than an atomic, organic compound interconnected with the soˉma (like Democritus and the Epicureans), and thus capable of dying with the body; others (like Platonists and Stoics) considered the psyche¯ an immortal entity, more in line with popular religious beliefs, superior, in fact, to the body and hindered by the latter in the attainment of wisdom and contentment. Perhaps most famously, Greeks who subscribed to Orphism or Pythagoreanism asserted that souls never ceased to exist but instead experienced transmigration (metempsychoˉsis), being released by death back into the universal cycle of life, transferred into new bodies, whether of humans or animals. The notion appealed to Pindar, whose dirges (thre¯noi) describe a series of three deaths the just must endure after which they would no longer transmigrate but rather live eternally on the Isles of the Blest. Orphic and Pythagorean thinking about death caught on particularly in Hellenistic times (c. 323–30 BCE), but, generally speaking, most Greeks still did not look forward to death, clinging as they did to notions of a dismal afterlife with Hades.

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Death from old age and “natural causes” was not exactly envied among the ancient Greeks, as it might be today. Despite their potential store of wisdom and experience, the elderly were typically regarded as physically weak, which marked them as no longer useful to society or to themselves. A variety of Greek authors, particularly playwrights, even made statements that the old should willingly step into death to make room for the young, thereby fulfilling the natural order of things. Indeed, an anonymous epitaph for a man named Dionysius of Tarsus states that, sixty years old and unmarried at his death, he wished he had never been born. Yet, on the other hand, the poet Callimachus of Cyrene (early to mid-third century BCE) wrote an epitaph for a priestess of Demeter who “closed her eyes at a goodly old age” in the arms of her sons, a clear expression of their affection for her and her contentment at living long and dying old so she could see them grown and married. Those who died “before their time” garnered less ambiguous, deep sympathy from the ancient Greeks. Many archaeological remains from epitaphs and literary works preserve memorials to young children who never had a chance to fulfill their promise, to young women who never had a chance to marry or died in childbirth, to men who fell too young in battle. For example, the renowned poetess Anyte of Tegea (early third century BCE) wrote of Philaenis, whose mother Cleina mourned that her short-lived daughter passed away before her wedding. In this category also belonged those who died by tragic accident, like the sailors who perished at sea, “mournful of all” according to an epitaph composed by the poet Alcaeus of Messene (early second century BCE). The sixth century BCE poet Simonides of Ceos once remarked that the good and the bad possessed the same share of death, which hovered over them equally; centuries earlier, Homer had stated that all are born to face death, even the greatest heroes and favorites of the gods. Still, a key difference between the heroic and the average person was that the former achieved a glorious death, as the legendary Achilles sought. In Greek society, greatest respect was paid to those who had died in battle or in fulfilling other dutiful obligations to family, friends, or community at large. Ever since the time of the poet Homer, Greek men had idolized Achilles, who had no qualms about throwing his life away in battle for his comrades and especially for his close friend Patroclus. The Athenian orator Hyperides, when delivering the eulogy for general Leosthenes and the other soldiers who died during the Lamian War (323–322 BCE), advised his listeners, just as Pericles had evidently done nearly a century before, not to speak of death or dying in the case of those who had lost their lives in a noble cause. Indeed, Hyperides asserted, they had not ceased to exist at all, but had been born anew.

Family and Gender: Death and Dying

As Hyperides wrote, the Greeks often regarded life as full of troubles, like sickness and sorrows. According to the biographer Plutarch, the playwright Aeschylus asserted that humans should not hate death, therefore, because it releases them from many troubles in living. Indeed, the Greeks told a popular story about a priestess of Hera at Argos who once prayed for the greatest benefit to be conferred on her two very devoted sons, Cleobis and Biton; when they died peacefully while sleeping in the temple of the goddess, this was regarded as the granting of that benefit. According to Homer, Achilles saw no reason to live after the death of Patroclus at the hands of Hector. Ancient Greeks did sometimes encourage the onset of death through suicide. They possessed no single word to denote suicide, though perhaps Plutarch’s use of the term autothanatos comes closest. Greeks did not necessarily regard such “voluntary withdrawal” from life as a reprehensible act of madness, unless it involved jumping to one’s death, drowning, or hanging oneself. Instead, they more often saw suicide as a conscious choice, properly motivated by unendurable pain or illness, shame through loss of chastity, military defeat, or the weaknesses of old age, or self-sacrifice for the sake of loved ones or community. In the latter sense, Achilles’ essentially suicidal behavior after Patroclus’ death could be interpreted as heroism. The Stoics especially approved of dying by suicide under prescribed conditions as an assertion of moral freedom and integrity. Even in the absence of complete statistical evidence with which to work, scholars have little doubt that mortality rates at different stages of life were much higher in the world of the ancient Greeks than today and that life expectancy in general was much shorter; estimates place life expectancy for ancient Greeks at twenty to thirty years at time of birth, for example, at fifty years for those who reached age 10, at sixty years for those who lived to be 35. Excessive mortality at certain times of year (tied to the spread of disease), during periods of famine and warfare, under the risks of childbirth and infancy, and so on, meant that death surrounded the ancient Greeks in a way that modern people would find difficult to imagine. They saw death as something that “polluted” families and whole communities and yet also as something that deserved commemoration in speeches, poems, and songs. The trick was to approach dying well, which most writings from the Greeks characterize as with honor and fortitude of character. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Household Religion; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Myths and Heroes; Orphism; Pythagoreans; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Inscriptions

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The World of Ancient Greece FURTHER READING Alexiou, M. 1974. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Boardman, J., and D. Kurtz. 1971. Greek Burial Customs. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Bremmer, J. 1983. The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Danforth, L. 1982. The Death Rituals of Rural Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. David, E. 1991. Old Age in Sparta. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Edmonds, R.  G. 2004. Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the “Orphic” Gold Tablets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Falkner, T. M., and J. de Luce, eds. 1989. Old Age in Greek and Latin Literature. Albany: SUNY Press. Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Johnston, S. I. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lattimore, R. 1962. Themes in Greek and Roman Epitaphs. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Morris, I. 1987. Burial and Ancient Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morris, I. 1992. Death-Ritual and Social Structures in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1996. ‘Reading’ Greek Death. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Van Hooff, A. J. L. 1990. From Autothanasia to Suicide. London and New York: Routledge. Vermeule, E. 1979. Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ziolkowski, J. 1981. Thucydides and the Tradition of Funeral Speeches at Athens. New York: Arno Press.

DIVORCE Custom and legal statute in most Greek communities placed wives under the virtually unlimited authority of their husbands. This meant that husbands had the right to initiate divorce (apopempsis, “sending away”) as a method of repudiating their wives. In some places, however, divorce (apoleipsis, “leaving behind”) could also be initiated by wives. An ancient Greek man who intended to divorce his wife had things pretty easy. In Athens, for instance, he had simply to kick his wife out of their home. He did not have to appear before a court to receive its permission nor did he have to file or

Family and Gender: Divorce

sign any legal paperwork. In fact, he did not even have to give his wife any sort of notice or warning that this was going to happen to her, which meant he might not even have any true grounds for the divorce. In some cases, though, a Greek man sought to divorce his wife purposely to marry another woman and he could even legally marry his ex-wife off to another man, whether or not of her choosing, as long as her male relatives agreed. The Athenian statesman Pericles obtained the consent of his wife for just such a divorce and remarriage on her part, so that he could live with the foreign woman, Aspasia, whom he loved, even though he could never legally marry her. An ex-husband would have to return his wife’s dowry to her father or legal guardian (kyrios), unless he accused her of wrongdoing; if that fault was proven, he could legally retain the whole dowry or as much of it as he chose. The dowry usually consisted of money, slaves, movable assets, but sometimes even buildings or land, or mortgages on such immovable wealth, as well as the wife’s trousseau, items such as clothing, jewelry, tableware, and furniture. The wife’s father or kyrios had handed over the dowry to her husband at the time of their wedding, when it was also assessed by the witnesses to the marriage; this was intended to prevent fraud in the return of the dowry in the event of a divorce. For similar purposes, the island communities of Tenos and Mykonos kept public registers of dowries. If an ex-husband refused to give up a dowry, legal procedures were in place to make sure that he paid some sort of interest on his continued possession of it, typically something in the neighborhood of 10 percent to 18 percent. On some of the Aegean Islands, the wedding ceremony even included placing a substantial lien on the husband’s property as security against his refusal to hand back the dowry in the event of a divorce. Such financial precautions may have deterred husbands from seeking “quick” divorces in those communities, perhaps the reason behind instituting them. Certainly this was true in Ptolemaic Egypt, where laws prescribed that husbands return the dowry within two months or be fined 150 percent of its value! Certainly, the ancient Greek ex-husband had no responsibility in helping his ex-wife find a place to live. She would be expected to return to her father’s house or to move in with her brother, uncle, or whichever other male relative was willing to take on the responsibility of being her guardian. Living on her own as a woman who had been divorced was not socially permissible. An ancient Greek woman who sought to divorce her husband had the harder time of it. Again using Athens as an example, she had to petition the eponymous archon, one of the chief officials of the city-state, for a legal separation and appear before him in court herself; this was unusual because Athenian women otherwise carried out legal actions through surrogates, that is, male representatives. An ancient Greek woman thus had to present explicit reasons for her divorce petition. In other words, she sued for fault on her husband’s part. Often, this

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involved the husband’s infidelity, as in the famous case of Hipparete, wife of the Athenian general Alcibiades. Having left Alcibiades to live with her brother, Hipparete then sued for divorce because of her husband’s affairs with courtesans of all kinds. Alcibiades had done nothing about their separation, but he refused to accept the divorce; he literally grabbed Hipparete during her court appearance and took her back to their home. She lived out the remainder of her life there, likely not very happy, and not a very long life either, according to our sources. Still, she had given Alcibiades a son and a daughter, and he never had to let go of the sizable dowry of twenty talents that she had brought to the marriage. Many saw this as the main motive for his actions in stopping their divorce. If he had lived in the city-state of Gortyn on Crete, and if the divorce had gone through, Alcibiades would have been fined for his bad behavior, in addition to losing the dowry. The divorcing woman was aware that she would leave the marriage with exactly that which she had brought into it, the dowry, and nothing more; indeed, in city-states like Gortyn, she would suffer a fine for taking anything not due to her under the law. At Athens, a male representative, usually her close relative, had to step forward to demand the dowry’s return. Technically, this dowry had never belonged to the married woman anyway, so, even in the case of her suing for divorce, it would simply transfer from her ex-husband’s hands to those of her father or male guardian. In other Greek communities, the divorcing wife could bring away with her more than just the dowry. For instance, at Gortyn, the law code allowed her also to claim half of any income that had been generated from the dowry, as well as half of all that she had woven for the household. Ancient Greek wives spent a lot of their time weaving clothing, blankets, and other material items for household use; half of that could amount to something considerable. In Ptolemaic Egypt, a woman could fine her husband 1,000 drachmae and recover her dowry in the case of him carrying on with other women. These examples speak to a sort of right to community property within certain Greek populations. An ancient Greek father had the right to remove his daughter from her marriage for just about any reason; in that case, he initiated divorce proceedings through her against her own husband. Her father could then keep her at home or, more typically in such cases, remarry her to another man whom he considered more suitable. Again, the ex-husband would have to repay the dowry. The Athenian orator Demosthenes described such a case when a man named Polyeuctus had a falling-out with his youngest daughter’s husband, Leocrates, and took her away from him to marry her off to a fellow named Spudias. In several Greek communities, most notably Athens, a male relative of a married woman’s father was sometimes required to compel her to divorce her husband, and the latter was required to grant her that divorce, if the couple had no sons to

Family and Gender: Divorce

inherit the estate of her deceased father. The ex-wife thus became the epikle¯ros, or “heiress,” and she was by custom required to marry her nearest male relative on her father’s side in the hopes of producing male heirs to her father’s estate. As in other instances of divorce, the former husband lost the dowry, to his wife’s new husband in this case. One would think that becoming an heiress might tempt a woman into initiating divorce in order to lay claim to her father’s estate, especially if it were sizable. Still, all the laws known in such cases insisted that the woman should marry designated male relatives, uncles or cousins on the father’s side, so such an ambitious woman would have to make sure that such men would assist her in disposing of the assets as she, in fact, wished. Athenian law, and apparently the statutes in other Greek states as well, demanded that a husband divorce his wife when she had committed adultery. Yet this brought public shame upon the husband, which he might seek to avoid by covering up his wife’s infidelity, and the loss of the dowry, which he might wish to, or even need to, keep instead of giving back. In such instances, the husband might circumvent the law to spare himself from the negative consequences of “mandated” divorce. Finally, Demosthenes reminds us that fraudulent divorces took place as well in ancient Greece. He describes the case of Aphobus, who allegedly divorced the sister of Onetor and owed the latter her dowry; Onetor mortgaged Aphobus’ land as security for the outstanding debt. In reality, Aphobus was still living with his wife; her appearance before the archon had been a sham. All three individuals were conspiring in an elaborate fraud to keep Aphobus’ land from being handed over to its rightful claimant, Demosthenes himself! In all the above scenarios, the status of the children of divorce would have remained the same. Their father would have had full legal custody over them, even in the case of children born to the couple after their divorce had been finalized. The law code at Gortyn required an ex-wife to leave some of her dowry with her ex-husband for the sake of their children. A mother’s fear of permanent separation from her children probably deterred many ancient Greek women from seeking to divorce their husbands, no matter the circumstances of their marriages. Divorce in the ancient Greek world, then, typically remained an option for both husband and wife, with little stigma attached to either except in cases of divorce for fault. Nevertheless, the option of divorce held less attractiveness for wives than for husbands. See also: Economics and Work: Cloth-Making; Debt; Landownership; Orators and Speechwriters; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Blended Families; Childbirth and Infancy; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Extended Family;

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Fathers; Friendship and Love; Grandparents; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Sexuality; Sons; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Prostitutes and Courtesans FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cohen, D. 1991. Law, Sexuality, and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davidson, J. 1997. Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Johnson, M., and T. Ryan, eds. 2005. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Pomeroy, S., ed. 1991. Women’s History and Ancient History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

EXTENDED FAMILY Almost all Greek communities, with the exception of unique examples like Sparta, centered upon the oikos. In ancient Greek, this word could have many meanings, such as home, household, or family. Oikos in the sense of the family, however, meant more than just parents and children. In addition, the ancient Greeks recognized further extended family in the form of one’s close kin, anchisteia, one’s kinsfolk more generally, syngeneia, and one’s in-laws, ke¯desteia, to use the terms by which the Athenians called them.

Family and Gender: Extended Family

The oikos closely conforms to what we would call the nuclear family, except that it also included other relations, such as grandparents, unmarried aunts, uncles, or cousins, widowed or orphaned relatives, and so on; it might also include slaves, servants, dependents, and workers, that is, those who labored side by side with the blood members of the family for the benefit of all, earning a share of what the whole produced. This wider conception of family, then, was the focus of a Greek individual’s identity; members of such an extended family did not seek their own, personal independence but rather the self-sufficiency of their group in relation to other groups, and the cooperation of their oikos with the others that made up the entire community. The members of an oikos lived in the same residence or set of residences under the authority of the same kyrios. The kyrios was the head of the household, the party responsible according to law and custom for providing for the family members and disposing of the family’s property. Legally, the head of household always had to be a male, and the position was ideally passed on from father to son; nevertheless, cases are known of women taking on the de facto role of kyria, even if de jure a male member of the family was recognized as kyrios as a form of legal technicality. The Greeks conceived of relations within the oikos, beginning with those between husband and wife, not in terms of power differential but in terms of complementarity; in a world of generally subsistence economics, all hands were required on deck, so to speak, for the family to survive and flourish. Hence, husbands primarily served as the public face of the family, especially in the area of politics, while wives served primarily as the managers of the household economy, including the raising of the children, care for the elderly, and conduct of servants, if any. Still, since most Greek families supported themselves through their own labor, whether as farmers, artisans, or shopkeepers, husbands and wives typically worked together in the “family business”; they simply divided up the tasks for greater efficiency, for instance, with husbands typically ploughing the fields and wives typically making the clothes. Naturally, such arrangements varied across families, but not too much (except in the case of very wealthy families with lots of servants and slaves). Furthermore, the children and other dependents of most oikoi contributed their talents and skills to the familial economy. Scholars estimate that Greek wives gave birth to between six and nine children on average, out of which two or three, on average, made it to adulthood. Such demographic realities made the role of children in the oikos critical to its present existence and future survival. In most Greek states, parents typically turned over portions of the family’s assets to their sons when the latter got married; one of those sons then became the guardian of his parents as they became too old to work. There were no public

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agencies or even private groups involved in the care of the elderly members of one’s extended family, as there often are today. Life expectancy and other limiting factors meant that having three generations under the same roof like this probably did not last for a long period of time. Nevertheless, laws did exist against the neglect or abuse of one’s elders, as at Athens, for instance. From these laws, we know that such maltreatment of the elderly did take place. We also learn from them that children who had been neglected in terms of their being raised, cared for, and trained by their parents had no legal obligation to look after the latter in their old age. Most families, though, and most Greeks, would have held their elderly family members in high regard for their experience and wisdom (though this was sometimes parodied, as in many Athenian comedies). Older family members were usually exempt from compulsory duties to the city, but some remained involved in public affairs as priests or priestesses, reserve guards for the military, envoys to foreign states, jurors in the law courts, and even city councilors. Within their own family and in the families of others, older women worked as nurses or nannies, while older men were often pedagogues, the essential chaperones of children to and from school, from whom the little ones learned a great deal about life in society and traditions of the family. Literary descriptions and funerary monuments reveal the close affections between Greek parents and their children, and among the children, especially the protective role played by brothers toward their sisters and the nurturing role played by older sisters toward their younger siblings. Tight emotional bonds also seem to have existed generally between household servants, even slaves, and the children of Greek families; not only would they have relied on one another in their everyday activities, but they also would have frequently grown up side by side with each other, especially in the case of young slaves. Moreover, paid servants, tied to the family by contract, were usually expected to have no spouses or children of their own, which would have made closeness with members of the family even more emotionally important and necessary. Back in Homeric times (c. 1100–600 BCE), the Greeks seem to have placed much value on agnatic relations outside the oikos, those traced through the father’s ancestry. As the nuclear family became of paramount importance in the Greek communities of the Classical Age (c. 490–323 BCE), agnatic relations remained significant but decreased in value in comparison to the oikos itself, and were joined by cognatic relations, those traced through either the father’s side or the mother’s side (the latter in a slightly subordinate position). Together, agnatic and cognatic relations constituted one’s anchisteia, syngeneia, and ke¯desteia. Greeks referred to their paternal and maternal relatives by the term syngeneia, those who shared kinship. Naturally, the members of the oikos itself, whether just the nuclear family or also other relations like the live-in grandparents or unmarried

Family and Gender: Extended Family

aunts noted above, belonged to the wider syngeneia. So also did grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on, who lived on their own, separate from the authority of one’s own kyrios. Within the broad circle of the syngeneia were those relatives considered close enough to have special obligations to one another, the members of the anchisteia and the members of the ke¯desteia. At Athens, the nearness of the “close kin” under the anchisteia was ranked according to the following hierarchy: first, brothers from the same father and their sons; next, sisters from the same father and their children; then, paternal cousins and their offspring; then, brothers from the same mother (if different fathers) and their sons; then, sisters from the same mother (if different fathers) and their children; and finally, maternal cousins and their offspring. These relatives, along with the members of one’s ke¯desteia, one’s in-laws, were expected to defend one another in court, prosecute the murderer of one of their own, provide the dowry for the needy daughter of one of their own, and arrange for one another’s burial (which often took place on the family’s ancestral land, or kle¯ros, no matter how small). In “compensation,” members of one’s anchisteia especially had claim to one’s estate, if there were no children to inherit and if there was no will designating particular heirs. Within the Greek communities, scholarly investigation indicates that endogamy (marriage within one’s own group), especially kin endogamy, took place more in the countryside than in the towns, where more kin exogamy (marriage outside one’s relatives) was typical. Yet many city-states had laws forbidding or punishing civic exogamy, marriage with those outside the community (though special grants of epigamia, right of intermarriage, from one’s city were sometimes possible). Overall, since most Greeks lived in the countryside rather than in urban centers, most seem to have practiced endogamy, marrying not only within their own community, but, in fact, within their own class and kin. Greek sources clearly express a preference for choosing spouses, or children for adoption, from one’s maternal and paternal relations. All this meant that members of one’s ke¯desteia would likely also be relatives within one’s syngeneia, as in the not-uncommon, first-cousin marriages known to us from Athens and elsewhere. In the end, ancient Greeks regarded the family, in all its narrower and wider senses, as the relationships among kin and the particular customs they shared; it was a very present, living “organism.” Greek city-states formally regarded the family as the building block of their society; the Athenians took this so seriously that the eponymous archon, their chief administrative official, held the special responsibility of protecting Athenian families. Laws and customs existed to keep property within the family, to minimize property disputes within extended families, and especially to maintain nuclear and extended family units, because these cared for and educated future generations of citizens and preserved the very culture of the community.

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See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Fathers; Grandparents; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Sons; Housing and Community: Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Primary Documents: Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphreys, S. C. 1993. The Family, Women and Death. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. McGinn, T. A. J. 2008. Widows and Patriarchy: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1994. Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1979. Theseus as Son and Stepson: A Tentative Illustration of the Greek Mythological Mentality. London: University of London. Strauss, L. 1970. Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the Oeconomicus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Watson, P. A. 1995. Ancient Stepmothers: Myth, Misogyny and Reality. Leiden: Brill.

FATHERS In the world of the ancient Greeks, one was commonly asked, “Who is your father?” This was the case in their myths and in real life. Fathers (pateres, sing. pate¯r) stood at the center of the family and of society, providing the key point of reference for an individual’s identity and membership in most Greek communities.

Family and Gender: Fathers

Ancient Greek fathers had legal power over their children; mothers did not. Yet both kept an emotional distance from their newborn babies because of the very high likelihood of infant mortality. In “respectable” families, the distance between fathers and children only increased since the latter were cared for out of sight by wet nurses and nannies. Fathers acknowledged their children formally in several steps. The amphidromia served as the first of these. From what little we know about this ritual of blessing or purification, typically held on the fifth day after the child’s birth, the midwife that had helped the mother bring the child into the world carried the swaddled infant around and around the hearth fire of the family’s home; this was the most sacred spot in the house, not to be used in this way without the father’s permission. His presence at the ceremony, and at the family banquet which followed, demonstrated acknowledgment of his paternity to the family and to the gods; the hanging of an olive crown (for a baby boy) or a strand of wool (for a baby girl) outside the front door included other citizens in this acknowledgment. The second step in formalizing fatherhood came on the tenth day after the child’s birth, when the father actually gave a name to the infant. This was particularly his responsibility, though there certainly would have been input from the mother and from the grandparents, who usually expected new members of the family to be named after them. The father’s own name often served as the derivative source for the names of his daughters and sons (as in the case of Perictione from Pericles or Aristophanes from Ariston). Daughters and sons primarily received names from their father’s side of the family; for example, a father typically named his first daughter after his own mother and his first son after his own father. Younger daughters and sons might then receive names from relations on either the paternal or maternal side. Sons and daughters were also identified by patronymic (son of so and so, daughter of so and so); at Athens, they further carried their father’s demotic (son or daughter of so and so, from the deme such and such), as they belonged to the same deme as their father. The father further demonstrated his commitment to his newborn child by praying to the gods (especially Hera Eileithyia) for their protection of his son or daughter, sealed by a sacrifice, and by inviting friends, as well as relatives, to share in the feast of the Dekate¯ (Tenth Day); guests at this event showed their participation in the formalities by giving gifts to the child and to the mother. The final step in a father acknowledging children as his own, surprisingly perhaps, often came long after they had grown up. Among Ionian Greeks, like the Athenians, for example, this took place among sixteen-year-old sons and daughters during an initiation festival held each fall and known as apatouria. At this festival, fathers presented their adolescent children to their phratries, mutual aid societies and brotherhoods of men; after two days of feasting and sacrifices to Zeus

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and Athena, each phratry, on the third day of this celebration, bore witness to the ritual first cutting of the son’s or daughter’s hair and ate meat from a sacrifice made by the father in support of his paternity. Wherever Ionian Greeks lived, this marked not only the passage into adulthood of the son or daughter but also the father’s desire for his “brothers” to accept his child as a legitimate citizen of the polis. Consequently, the father shared and thereby passed on his lifelong membership in the phratry to his children, especially to his sons, who thus received a whole array of surrogate fathers to aid them in their lives. Fathers expected to be looked after by their grown-up children, especially by their sons, to be buried by their children, and for their children to maintain the ancestral religious practices of their fathers, but only if they themselves had first taken good care of their children and either taught them how to earn a decent livelihood or arranged for them good marriages, or both. No father could expect anything from his children in old age if he had not done this, and some Greek communities, like Athens, even confirmed this by law. One of the most onerous, and far-reaching, responsibilities of fatherhood was the selection of a suitable mate for one’s daughters. Marriages in ancient Greek society were arranged between fathers and prospective grooms; prospective brides had little, if any, say in the matter. Sympathetic fathers would have taken the wishes and emotions of their daughters into consideration, but their primary concerns would still have been the social reputation, status, and financial wherewithal of the future son-in-law. Fathers had to make sure that their daughters and their daughters’ children would have a good chance to flourish and that a peaceful, mutually beneficial “alliance” would be established between the in-law families. Indeed, if a woman’s father later found fault in the marriage, he could legally remove her from it to bring her back home or arrange for her remarriage to another. Of course, if a woman decided to divorce her husband, her father, if he were still alive and in charge of his household (kyrios), was expected to take her back as well. Fathers had to be prepared for all of these eventualities and, from the start, to dower their daughters, and indeed any women under their guardianship, upon marriage. For the many families that lived at more or less subsistence level in the Greek world, the dowry would have represented a substantial outlay of movable property or wealth, even more burdensome in the case of having more than one marriageable daughter. Mothers had the primary responsibility of training their daughters in the social and domestic duties of adulthood, but fathers played a role as well, especially those who arranged an education for their daughters or who instructed them personally. For instance, the famous painter Timarete learned her art from her father, as did the equally famous poetess Moero from her actor father (whose name may have been, like her son’s, Homeros).

Family and Gender: Fathers

Ancient Greek fathers had the primary responsibility of preparing their sons for civic engagement (which began with entry into the phratry) and for a lifetime of working. They would teach their sons how to fight and to respect the laws and customs of their community; they would send their sons to school to learn how to conduct themselves well in public debate and the exercise of their voting privileges. They would also apprentice their sons to an expert in some trade or teach them the family business themselves. Thus, most Greek farmers were sons of farmers, just as most Greek carpenters were sons of carpenters, Greek stonemasons were sons of stonemasons, Greek physicians were sons of physicians, and so on. Talented sculptors, like Patrocles of Sicyon, for example, passed their skills on to their sons, as did talented playwrights, like Aristophanes of Athens. Fathers also provided for their sons by handing over to them their principal property, especially their landholdings. Often, this did not take place upon the father’s death, but rather upon the marriages of his sons, in the arrangement of which fathers usually played a role. Thus, if a father were still living at the time of these marriages, he began to part with his own property, thereby leaving himself more vulnerable financially. Indeed, he sooner or later became dependent on one of his married sons, so whoever inherited the principal responsibility of caring for his father in the latter’s old age became his father’s guardian (kyrios). In ancient Greek society, despite all its contests and wars, men did not feel the need to appear tough all the time and hide their emotions. So, fathers frequently expressed their strong attachment to their daughters and sons while alive and openly mourned their loss if they predeceased them. Funerary memorials bear this out, as in the case of the late fourth-century BCE epitaph left by Aristocles for his daughter Philocydis; he and his wife took their own daughter’s young daughter, Eucleia, into their care. In ancient Greek legend, Electra would let nothing stop her in seeking to avenge the murder of her father Agamemnon (even against her own mother) and Telemachus received constant praise from the friends of his father Odysseus for how much he resembled the latter in form, abilities, and cleverness. Daughters and sons legally belonged to their fathers in the ancient Greek world, but, more important, they shared their fathers’ social standing, honor, respectability, and ancestry, hopefully passing all that, and the memory of their fathers, on to future generations. Fatherhood, then, held pride of place in the structure of the ancient Greek family and society. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture/ Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Landownership; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Extended Family; Friendship and Love; Grandparents;

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Inheritance; Marriage; Men; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Sons; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Cavalry; Citizenship; Hoplite Soldiers; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Education; Inscriptions; Primary Documents: Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE) FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Foxhall, L., and J. Salmon, eds. 1998a. Thinking Men: Masculinity and Its Self-­ Representation in the Classical Tradition. London and New York: Routledge. Foxhall, L., and J. Salmon, eds. 1998b. When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in Classical Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lambert, R. 1993. The Phratries of Attica. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. MacDowell, D. M. 1978. The Law in Classical Athens. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1979. Theseus as Son and Stepson. London: University of London.

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE An Attic drinking song (skolion) proclaimed the four greatest possessions: “Health is the first and best. Second best is to be born with shapely beauty. Third is wealth honestly won. Fourth are days of youth spent delightfully with friends.” Greek literature is full of stories of epic friendship, like that of Orestes and Pylades, Heracles and Iolaus, Achilles and Patroclus, or Theseus and Pirithous. It is also

Family and Gender: Friendship and Love

Greek drinking cup, or kylix, painted with an image of Achilles bandaging Patroclus during the Trojan War, c. 500 BCE. Ever since the famous telling of their story by the poet Homer in the eighth century BCE, Achilles and Patroclus had come to symbolize for ancient Greeks the closest bonds of friendship. (CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

full of stories of love, like those of Hector and Andromache or Daphnis and Chloe. Indeed, in the world of the ancient Greeks, nothing seemed to motivate people more (aside from perhaps honor and shame) than the presence or absence of friendship and love. The ancient Greeks recognized distinct sorts of friendship and expressed these differences in particular terms. For instance, one might enjoy hetaireia, comradeship, with one’s fellow soldiers or with members of one’s guild, social club, or political association. This sort of friendship entailed mutual obligations and loyalty within the dynamics of the particular group. One might enjoy friendship with citizens of other Greek or non-Greek communities (xenoi), in which case such a relationship was termed xenia, hospitality built on mutual respect and utility. Among one’s kin, one hopefully enjoyed oikeiote¯s, affectionate relations arising from living together; husbands and wives were expected to have this sort of friendship. The broadest term for friendship, however, was philia, which encompassed all sorts of personal relationships, from those based on mutual pleasure, like friendships little children formed with one another, to those based on mutual advantage,

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like association among criminals. The philosopher Plato warned that such might merely be false friendship, lykophilia, the friendship of a wolf! Best of all in the Greek mind, then, was the relationship of close friends (epite¯deioi), which was itself a specified form of philia. In his Nicomachean Ethics and again in his Eudemian Ethics, the philosopher Aristotle described the true friend as “another self” (allos autos) who wished one well for one’s own sake rather than for his pleasure, amusement, success, and so on. True friends helped one another to perpetually improve. Aristotle even asserted, against his usual misogyny, that true friendship could exist between spouses, crossing the otherwise “natural” barrier between men and women. Both happiness and pleasure depended on friendship according to the Epicurean philosophy, which emerged in the fourth century BCE and enjoyed wide popularity across the Greek world in Hellenistic times (c. 323–30 BCE). Its founder, Epicurus of Athens, strongly advocated surrounding oneself with those persons who brought out the most pleasant feelings and the best aspects of one’s character. True friends find pleasure in giving to one another and in relieving one another’s pains, thought Epicurus. Epicurean Greeks thus believed that sure and trustworthy friendship could outlast every evil of life and bring tranquility, their most crucial goal. Followers of the Stoic school of philosophy, founded by Zeno of Citium in the fourth century BCE, sought self-sufficiency, a sort of rugged individualism. Yet, like Epicureans, Stoic Greeks also regarded true friendship as expansive of one’s virtues; if one could find friends with values similar to one’s own, they could support one in the trials and tribulations of fulfilling one’s duty to the cosmos. Among the ancient Greeks, then, good friends voluntarily cooperated with one another, gave moral support to one another, took action to help out one another in crises, appeared as character witnesses in court for one another, looked after one’s another’s families, and so on. In the tight-knit communities in which most Greeks lived, such friends might be gained through projects engaged in together, through exchange of favors, through willingness to give without expectation of return, and through ties of marriage and kinship. Although the Greeks always heralded most those friends who stood on equal footing with one another in regard to age and status, close friendships frequently cut across even such differences. The Greeks also paid particular attention to how obligations to family, kin, comrades, and, indeed, one’s community as a whole challenged the bonds of mutual affection. This emerged as one of the central themes in philosophical discussion and in dramas on the stage; the Athenian playwright Sophocles (fifth century BCE) built the gripping work, Antigone, around the conflicting forms of philia between father and son, uncle and niece, sister and sister, bride and groom, citizen and state, even the living and the dead.

Family and Gender: Friendship and Love

Although disapproved of by some of the philosophical schools, ancient Greeks generally suffered no embarrassment in expressing intensity of emotion toward their friends. Callimachus of Cyrene (early to mid-third century BCE), for example, calling to mind the many sunsets he and his friend, Heracleitus of Halicarnassus, had watched while conversing, wrote an epitaphic poem in which he confessed to the floods of tears he cried over the latter’s passing. The poet Sappho of Lesbos (late seventh–early sixth centuries BCE) no doubt captured, and inspired, women’s sentiments in this regard; it appears to have been particularly common for ancient Greek women to form very emotional friendships among one another, since they often found themselves otherwise restricted in their relationships by social convention. The ancient Greeks also applied the term philia to relationships involving love. Not surprisingly, they had other words for love as well. There was, of course, eroˉs, love from sexual desire, but there was also agape¯, a sort of philosophical or brotherly love unaffected by physical desires. There was homonoia, the oneness of mind expected between loving spouses; there was pathos, which could be interpreted as the raging emotion of someone in “enslaving love” to another, and pothos, which could be interpreted as intense longing for another. Greek parents clearly expressed love for their children, and Greek children did for their parents, as indicated not only in literary evidence but particularly in the epitaphs they prepared for one another. The customs of family life, with extended families typical and blended families quite common, engendered even farther-reaching bonds of love among relations. Romantic love existed among the ancient Greeks inside and outside of marriage. The latter was perhaps best symbolized in the Homeric story of the Ithacan king Odysseus and his wife Penelope. The poets and playwrights of Hellenistic times told many more such love tales, usually placing lost or forbidden love as the motivation for two young people to get married, after surviving many obstacles along the way. Poets of Archaic times (c. 800–490 BCE), like the aristocrat Sappho, celebrated and heralded the power of such very personal love to outshine all the other things, whether wealth, status, or success, valued by society. Like their successors in the Hellenistic Era, such authors also recognized the strength and risks of lovesickness. Philosophers focused on this aspect of love, and thereby rejected romantic, passionate, or sexual love. Epicurus regarded such love as bringing madness and disrupting the calmness of life that he sought; Epictetus the Stoic (late first–early second centuries CE) spoke of such love as “enslaving” people to “worthless” partners, causing them to beg and cry for attention and then feel elated when they had gained that attention basically by bribery through gifts. Philosophers thus questioned whether such intense romantic or erotic love was good for one’s soul.

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As the fifth-century BCE dramas of Sophocles and Euripides make clear, many Greeks feared romantic or passionate love. They believed that relationships should be based on harmony and that emotional love, not tempered by reason, would cause one to neglect one’s duties and, potentially, could bring about destructive results to oneself and one’s community. About friendship, the Greeks had many proverbs, like “a bond as strong as Heracles himself” or “help your friends, harm your enemies.” They spoke of love as “consuming” them or striking their hearts “with burning arrows.” Like everything else in Greek life, friendship and love were acknowledged as paradoxical and favored in moderation. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Family and Gender: Adultery; Blended Families; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Extended Family; Fathers; Grandparents; Homosexuality; Marriage; Men; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Sexuality; Sons; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Food and Drink: Hospitality; Potions; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Biology; Medicine; Primary Documents: Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE); Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE); Poetry—Greek Poets on Love FURTHER READING Annas, J. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Davidson, J. 2007. The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Dover, K. J. 1974. Greek Popular Morality. London: Basil Blackwell. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foxhall, L. and J. Salmon, eds. 1998. When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in Classical Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Hands, A.  R. 1968. Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome. London: Thames & Hudson. Herman, G. 1987. Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Konstan, D. 1997. Friendship in the Classical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Family and Gender: Grandparents Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Porter, R., and S. Tomaselli, eds. 1989. The Dialectics of Friendship. London and New York: Routledge. Price, A. W. 1989. Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sissa, G. 2008. Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Stampolidis, N.  C., and Y. Tassoulas, eds. 2009. Eros from Hesiod’s Theogony to Late Antiquity. Athens: Museum of Cycladic Art. Stewart, A. 1997. Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winkler, J. J. 1990. The Constraints of Desire. London and New York: Routledge.

GRANDPARENTS The ancient Greeks often identified themselves through parentage (Pericles, son of Xanthippus, for instance, or Berenice, daughter of Arsinoe) and might trace their “immediate” family ancestry as far back as their great-grandfathers (propappoi). In point of fact, though, only a small percentage of them even had the chance to know their grandparents (  pappoi). Just as in societies across today’s world, where a person might become a grandparent at a variety of ages, the same held true across the ancient Greek world. Still, ancient Greek marriage patterns narrowed the window of opportunity for becoming a grandparent. A typical ancient Greek woman, for example, married at about age fifteen; she could conceivably have given birth very soon afterward to a daughter as her first child, who herself might become a mother at fifteen as well. The daughter’s mother, then, would have become a grandmother (te¯the¯, maia, mamme¯) at age thirty or so, while her father would have become a grandfather (  pappos) at perhaps age forty-five, since ancient Greek fathers tended to be older than their wives by a decade or more. By the same token, since ancient Greek men usually married later in life than women, a man, who married and perhaps had his first son at age thirty, would not see grandchildren from that son until he himself had reached roughly the age of sixty. Life expectancy imposed further constraints on potential grandparenthood. Scholars estimate that ancient Greek women lived on average to the age of thirtyfive (many dying young because of complications from childbirth), while ancient Greek men lived on average to the age of forty-four (many dying young in warfare). This would have meant that many women would have lived long enough to become grandmothers to their daughters’ children, but not to their sons’; perhaps two-thirds of them, according to modern estimates, would have seen at least one

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grandchild. Many men, however, would never have been grandfathers to either their daughters’ or their sons’ children; perhaps as few as one-fifth would have lived long enough to see a grandchild born to them. All this ties in to the wider question of how many “senior citizens,” to use the modern terminology, would have been around. Statistics regarding the percentage of people within any particular age-group are notoriously difficult to arrive at for the ancient Greek world. Still, using all the available evidence, scholars estimate that 7 percent or less of the citizen populations in most ancient Greek communities would have been age sixty or more; less than 1 percent would have reached age eighty. Classical Athens appears to have been quite unusual in this regard, since scholars estimate that perhaps 10–20 percent of the citizen population there was over the age of sixty, as a result of a whole array of factors that seem to have extended the average life expectancy. Marriage patterns, average age at parenthood, and low life expectancy thus contributed to the reality of few ancient Greek children having had direct experience of their grandparents, outside of unusual communities like Athens. Another consequence of such factors was that ancient Greek children were much more likely to have known their grandmothers than their grandfathers, and even when they did know the latter, grandfathers were more likely to have been from the maternal side than from the paternal side of the family. In the typical Greek household, grandparents would have lived with their children and their children’s children, with the son (typically the eldest) who had inherited the principal share of the family estate (however small) or with a daughter, either of whom were in that case expected to look after their parents in their old age (what we would call middle age and beyond); there existed no such thing as “senior residences,” whether privately or publicly operated, in the ancient Greek world. As suggested by the analysis above, daughters were more likely than sons to have had the support as well as the assistance of still-living parents in the raising of the grandchildren. Grandfathers, especially those who lived long enough to see their eldest son have children, no longer served as the kyrios, or legal master of their household, and no longer represented their oikos in the affairs of the community; such authority and responsibility had passed down to the son or sons to whom the grandfather had transferred the family estate (especially at Athens). Grandmothers, especially widows, had far fewer restrictions on their behavior than the younger women in their families, who were held to tighter standards for the sake of their husband’s honor. In either the case of such grandfathers or such grandmothers, they had essentially become dependent on the needs and attitudes of the children and grandchildren with whom they lived. On the other hand, to have lived alone as a grandmother or as a grandfather, for that matter, would have been regarded socially as very unusual, even as a disgrace to the family name.

Family and Gender: Grandparents

The “senior” members of the family would be in the household, then, to participate in the lives of their grandchildren, especially within the first few years of the latter’s lives (perhaps up to age ten). Grandparents played important roles, particularly as supplemental caregivers and tutors to the youngsters of their families. Indeed, even from those ancient times, we hear stories of grandmothers spoiling their grandkids! Grandparents served as guardians over their grandchildren when their own children predeceased them. In addition, since so many babies died within their first year (perhaps one-fourth) and so many children within their first ten years (perhaps one-third to one-half), grandparents would have faced pretty frequently the devastating loss of their descendants. Grandparents, whether at the younger end of the age range or not, likely continued to work in order to assist in whatever way they could in the familial economy; they not only worked in the home, on the family farm, or in the family shop, but also hired themselves out as pedagogues, governesses, or midwives. They also continued to participate in the civic and religious life of their communities. So, grandmothers might serve as priestesses and grandfathers, though technically retired from military service, might still serve in some public capacity. At Sparta, for instance, elderly men age sixty and above constituted the ruling council, or gerousia; at Athens, elderly men were called up along with their younger fellow citizens for jury duty and to serve on the Areopagus (if a member of the elite) or on the Council of 500 (as did Socrates at age sixty-three). In Greek states where men assembled to vote on legislation or elect officials, one would have found grandfathers and other elder men attending to cast their ballots; in fact, for a certain period in Athenian history, senior-citizen men (in this case, all those above age fifty) had the right to speak first in the assembly. Besides, particular official positions, such as the homicide judges (ephetai) and the judicial arbitrators (diaitetai) at Athens, had to be held by men of age fifty or fifty-nine, respectively, who were likely also grandfathers. The ancient Greeks commonly followed the practice of naming grandchildren after grandparents, especially the eldest son after his father’s father (  patropatoˉr) and the eldest daughter after her father’s mother (  patrome¯toˉr). This custom served as a token illustration of the continuity of identity and traditions through the generations of the family, which would have reassured the grandparents, as the very existence of their grandchildren did, that their memory and their lives, everything they had long worked to build up, would survive after their passing. Some literary evidence from the ancient Greek world, particularly from Athenian Old and New Comedy, indicates a social prejudice, even a stigma, associated with the elderly members of one’s family, depicted as less useful, burdensome, and set in their outdated ways, sometimes even as absurdly virile or sex-crazed. True, the ancient Greeks generally did not consider old age as a good thing primarily

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because of the physical decay of the body and mental peculiarities with which it was associated. Yet grandparents with living children or grandchildren were seen as luckier than those elderly unmarried and childless, and attitudes toward grandparents, and toward the elderly in general, certainly seem to have varied quite a bit. For one thing, the Greeks really had no definite lower limit for what it meant to be in “old age” (ge¯ras); someone might have been called “old” (geroˉn) at age fifty-five or at age seventy-five. Moreover, many ancient Greeks considered the wisdom and experience of older members of the family as a great asset, despite whatever losses they may have suffered in terms of their physical abilities. At Athens and elsewhere, laws enforced the care of grandparents or elderly family members in general; indeed, those standing for political office had to prove, among other things, that they had taken proper care of the senior members of their families or be disqualified from accepting public service. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/ Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Landownership; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Retirement; Family and Gender: Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Childhood and Youth; Daughters; Death and Dying; Extended Family; Fathers; Inheritance; Marriage; Men; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Sexuality; Sons; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Assemblies; Athenian Constitution; Citizenship; Councils; Spartan Constitution; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Religion and Beliefs: Priests and Priestesses FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. David, E. 1991. Old Age in Sparta. Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert. Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Davies, J.  K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. Salem, NH: Ayer Co. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life. London: Duckworth. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Classical Athens. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. London: Duckworth. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. McGinn, T. A. J. 2008. Widows and Patriarchy: Ancient and Modern. London: Duckworth.

Family and Gender: Homosexuality Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Richardson, B. E. 1933. Old Age among the Ancient Greeks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

HOMOSEXUALITY Scholars today continue to debate the exact nature of homosexuality in the world of the ancient Greeks and how it should be understood in relation to modern notions. For most ancient Greek men and women, it does not seem to have been a matter of sexual orientation, whether temporary or lifelong, in the modern sense. The ancients did not even have a precise term for homosexual behavior because it was generally not regarded as separate from heterosexual behavior. Given the current state of our knowledge, most scholars would argue that homosexuality was to the ancient Greeks just another variant of sexual activity rather than a long-term lifestyle choice. The gods themselves were said to engage in homosexual behavior, as did legendary heroes, providing models for human beings to emulate. Perhaps the most famous of these examples was the relationship that the highest god, Zeus, pursued with the Trojan prince Ganymede. There was even the suggestion that Achilles and his devoted friend Patroclus were lovers. The relatively emotionless aspect of ancient Greek marriages, the fact that most were arranged “business deals” in which the husband felt no particular affection or passion for his wife, perhaps explains much of the attraction of homosexual love as it appears in the ancient Greek context. Greek males evidently came to believe that true love, even passion, might only be socially permissible, as well as possible in a practical sense, between homoerotic “equals.” As a result, many, if not most, Greek males engaged in homosexual behavior. They did not typically do so as an exclusive sexual orientation, nor did any Greek we know of think of a homosexual relationship as a marriage; in that sense, we might refer to such ancient Greek males more accurately as bisexual in the modern sense of the term. Homosexual behavior was not absent from the middle and lower classes of ancient Greek society, but it seems to have been especially common, embraced, and cultivated among males of the upper class, as, for example, within the Athenian aristocracy. Modern scholarship generally categorizes such homosexual relations among ancient Greek males as having involved a dominant partner (eraste¯s) and a passive one (eromenos). The former was typically an adult male (above the age of eighteen), while the latter was often an adolescent boy (between the ages of twelve and eighteen); the Greeks came to believe that such youths needed to be introduced to sexuality by means of relations with older, male partners. Such

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pederastic relationships (from the Greek term paiderastia) were meant to be initiated by the eraste¯s (the one inflamed with desire), never by the eromenos (the desired one), and to be developed on a foundation of mutual respect and consent; they involved often intricate courting rituals of chasing, retreating, and welcoming, as well as the giving and accepting of presents. The more mature partner thereby sought sexual satisfaction (through anal penetration and intercrural rubbing), while the less mature one “learned the ropes” and received material gain and enhanced status besides through association with the other. Indeed, the older partner was expected to protect his adolescent love-interest from any form of shame that might damage the latter’s reputation in his adult future. The intention here was not to create a permanent sexual relationship, however. Once the eromenos attained adulthood (defined usually by age, but sometimes by the appearance of body hair on the youth’s face or genitals), he was expected to become an eraste¯s himself by courting a younger man. His relationship with his previous older lover, with whom genuine affection and mutual esteem may have been achieved, might continue only as a friendship, without any physical, sexual component. In Athens, for example, a free adult male citizen who remained the passive partner in homosexual activities brought shame on himself and his relatives, as seen frequently in the satirizing attacks on the Athenian comic stage against such “effeminate” men, known as kinaidoi (catamites). Indeed, a passive adult male citizen might even be accused of “selling himself” to a dominant male, for which Athenian law demanded that he be stripped of his political rights. Debate continues among scholars about whether men typically gave up all homoerotic relationships when they married (commonly in their early thirties at Athens, for example). Some have suggested that homosexual activity continued, partly as a means of contraception. There are also the cases of the pair Socrates and Alcibiades, as well as the pair Alexander the Great and Hephaistion, all of whom had wives, but who, some propose, may have enjoyed homoerotic intimacy with one another nevertheless. Ancient Greek married men would have thus found sexual release and satisfaction in such relations without the danger of enlarging their own families beyond their financial resources—certainly a concern for many Greeks, who tended to live by subsistence. Modern scholars find it is hard to say whether the same distinctions in roles applied among ancient Greek women engaged in homosexual activities as did among ancient Greek men. Greek poetry from the time of Sappho of Lesbos in the seventh century BCE onward suggests a parallel attraction on the part of more mature women for younger women for the sake of their beauty, abilities, and personal qualities. The biographer Plutarch credited the Spartan women and girls with practicing such relationships for the sake of virtue. Certainly, some ancient

Family and Gender: Homosexuality

Greek women engaged in homoerotic relationships; they even made use of artificial sex-toys, like leather dildos, to enhance their approaches to achieving physical closeness. Yet the male-dominated Greek societies did not find it appropriate that women experience anteroˉs (reciprocal desire), even in their relations with their husbands; for women to do so in homosexual activity would have been regarded as a form of hypermasculinity and frowned upon. Indeed, authors of medical and astrological literature in the ancient Greek world labeled homoerotic women (tribades), especially those who initiated such relations, as mentally and morally suspect, perhaps even in need of some form of surgical correction. Greek communities expected their women to marry at a young age for the purpose of producing children with their husbands for the continuation of society. Consequently, they expected women to refrain from any sexual activity outside of marriage, which would have prevented the majority of adult women from engaging in homosexual behavior, unless in a clandestine fashion. Unlike Greek men, then, Greek women did not have homosexuality as an open, extramarital option. According to a famous historical anecdote, homoerotic relationships, and the competition over them, could precipitate major political changes. The acclaimed Athenian “champions of liberty” in the late sixth century BCE, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, were said to have been homosexual lovers. It was also said that they had developed a considerable resentment toward the Pisistratid tyrant Hipparchus, whom they assassinated, because of his attempted seduction of Harmodius. In the Late Classical Age, the Thebans created the Sacred Band, an elite military unit consisting of 150 pairs of erasteis and eromenoi in their twenties; these men were instrumental in turning the tide of war against numerous adversaries of their citystate, including the Spartans, until their virtual destruction in the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE) at the hands of Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander. The explanation for sex among individuals of the same gender interested an array of ancient Greek authors. For instance, they said that the Dorian Greeks initiated the practice and incorporated it into the training of their youth, as in the Spartan agoˉge¯. Even one of the greatest philosophers of the Greek world, Plato, in a work called Symposium, included a discussion of the subject among the characters of the dialogue. One of these characters, supposed to be the comic playwright Aristophanes, told a story of how the first humans were round creatures, each with four arms and four legs, their heads having two faces, front and back; in addition, these humans had three genders, male, female, and androgynous, but they did not need to engage in sex. Like the Giants and similar creatures mentioned in Greek myth, these first human beings were immensely strong, as well as violent toward one another, and hostile toward the gods. To humble humankind, and neutralize the threat it posed to the world, Zeus decided to split each human with a bolt of

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lightning; the previously asexual humans thus separated into sexual halves, the androgynous humans (of which there happened to be many more) into male and female halves, the all-female humans into two female halves, and the all-male humans into two male halves. Thus, Plato used a sort of mythical story to explain the attraction men and women have for each other, as well as the attraction some women have for other women, and some men for other men; all of them were trying to find their other, missing half. Plato’s explanation of homosexuality treated it as an innate orientation, not even a lifestyle choice. He perhaps heralded a changing attitude toward homosexuality heading into post-Classical times, but scholars are not entirely sure of this. Frequency of male homoerotic relationships certainly continued well into Roman times, but criticism of homosexuality in general and especially of perceived female homoeroticism also increased. Modern scholars tend to be careful not to impose today’s notions on the homosexual behaviors of the ancient world in order to understand them in their own context. Thus, they read ancient homosexuality not as a sexual orientation but rather as sexual actions between persons of the same gender. In a world in which men and women of free status were sexually off-limits to one another outside of marriage, homosexual relations provided a certain degree of physical gratification and emotional closeness, but apparently within societally restricted limits. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Friendship and Love; Marriage; Men; Sexuality; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Citizenship; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Science and Technology: Medicine FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brooten, B. J. 1996. Love between Women. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cohen, D. 1991. Law, Sexuality, and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, J. 2007. The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Dover, K. J. 1978. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foxhall, L., and J. Salmon, eds. 1998. When Men Were Men. London and New York: Routledge.

Family and Gender: Inheritance Halperin, D.  M., J.  J. Winkler, and F.  I. Zeitlin, eds. 1990. Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Larmour, D., P. A. Miller, and C. Platter, eds. 1998. Rethinking Sexuality: Foucault and Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rabinowitz, N. S., and L. Auanger, eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. Austin: University of Texas Press. Sergent, B. 1986. Homosexuality in Greek Myth. Boston: Beacon Press. Sissa, G. 2008. Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Skinner, M. B. 2005. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Stewart, A. 1997. Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winkler, J. J. 1990. The Constraints of Desire. London and New York: Routledge. Younger, J., ed. 2004. Sex in the Ancient World from A–Z. London and New York: Routledge.

INFANCY. See CHILDBIRTH AND INFANCY INHERITANCE Leaving one’s estate as a legacy to one’s heirs is one of the prime concerns expressed in the literary and epigraphic record of the ancient Greek world. Customs and laws existed in every Greek state to guide and restrict the options and the processes of inheritance, for the longevity of the family and of the community. In most Greek communities, legitimate sons (legitimacy being defined differently in different places) inherited equally with one another from their father’s estate; in some communities, as at Athens, for example, sons often drew lots to assign the items of the estate. No last will and testament could divert inheritance from legitimate sons, but it could complicate matters by attempting to direct an unequal division of assets among those sons (as a result of the father’s favoritism). Where this was possible, legal processes existed to aid sons in claiming their full inheritance, unless it could be proven that they had been derelict in their duties to parents as required by law and custom. Only in Sparta, it seems, did the law require that all the family’s land go to the eldest son. In the event that a family had no legitimate sons to inherit, the father would often adopt a son, who would inherit under the law just as if he had been a natural

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son. An adopted son could not be disinherited, even if his adoptive parents should have sons of their own after the adoption. Legitimate Greek daughters typically received a smaller portion of their parents’ estate than their brothers, no more than half as much at best (as was the expectation of Spartan daughters). Indeed, this inheritance usually took one of two forms: paraphernalia, items for their personal use (such as clothing and jewelry) over which they would always exercise some control, and proix, or dowry, at the time of marriage over which their husbands exercised full control. The bride’s family would promise to the groom whatever linens, furnishings, jewelry, clothes, land, money, buildings, livestock, or slaves she was entitled to from her father’s estate; in Athens, a dowry could not legally include houses, land, or livestock, which had to go to male heirs. Witnesses would attend and attest to the items in the dowry and their value, which varied a great deal from family to family depending on their socioeconomic position. As part of the wedding ceremonies, the bride’s family handed her over to her husband along with the dowry. Most of the “inheritance” from her father, in other words, passed directly to her husband, and was never really hers to do with as she pleased. Her husband would combine the dowry with his own possessions and wealth as the cumulative foundation for the marriage and the new family unit. In the event that a legitimate daughter was left unmarried when her father passed away, and he had no sons, adopted or biological, to inherit his estate, several Greek communities, most notably Athens, turned to the custom of the epiklerate: a paternal male relative of the so-called epikle¯ros, or heiress, often an uncle, was required under this custom to marry her and act as manager of the inherited estate for their male offspring. If the daughter was already married and had male children of her own, then her husband would act as the custodian of his father-in-law’s estate for those children; if they had no sons, however, her husband would be required to grant her a divorce so that she could marry her nearest paternal male relative and, hopefully, produce sons with him as heirs to her father’s estate. Finally, in the event that the woman was widowed and had underage sons, the epiklerate would also kick in, compelling her to marry a paternal male relative as guardian over the heirs to the family estate. As in the case of the dowry, in any of these scenarios, the heiress, in fact, only served as the conduit to pass assets on from one male to another. The “compulsory” spouse of the epiklerate belonged to a man’s “close kin,” the anchisteia, to use the Athenian term. These folks also had the responsibility of providing dowries for unmarried daughters connected to their group. Moreover, if there were no legitimate sons or daughters alive to inherit a man’s estate, this would devolve upon the next closest heirs of the anchisteia. His brothers, if from the same father, and their sons would have had first claim to the estate. Next would have been his sisters, again if from the same father, and their children. Paternal cousins and their offspring could stake a claim in the absence of these. Brothers from the same

Family and Gender: Inheritance

mother (but different father) and their sons, then sisters from the same mother (but different father) and their children stood next in the line of inheritance. Finally, maternal cousins and their offspring had the farthest claim to the inheritance. Again, there were variations on this theme in the different Greek city-states. In Sparta, for instance, special laws existed granting nephews the estate of deceased maternal uncles, if the latter had no legitimate sons of their own. As at Athens, there would be court proceedings to establish the next of kin’s claim to the inheritance. The anchisteia sometimes included nothoi, illegitimate children, especially sons. The city-state of Athens, for instance, provides us evidence that a father’s nothoi could be regarded as within the first rank of heirs within the anchisteia before the end of the fifth century BCE. Afterwards, though, new legislation entirely excluded illegitimate children from inheritance, except for a sort of “consolation prize” of money (at most 1,000 drachmas), if left to them by will. Inheritances could also be arranged through wills, though not without legal challenges, as noted above. Greek men could not disinherit their sons or daughters by will, but Greek husbands were fond of using a last will and testament to leave something for their wives, who were otherwise excluded from most inheritance customs and statutes. There was no such thing, in that sense, as the “community property” of modern societies, owned or inherited by a wife in the event of her spouse’s death. In fact, Greek women, outside of places like Sparta, could not even legally make their own wills, so they had to work through their kyrios (father, husband, or male guardian) to dispose of valuable items of their own. Many Greek poleis, and again Athens provides our best examples, took on the obligation of raising the orphaned sons and daughters of fallen veterans and of providing dowries for any orphaned citizen daughters, even for those too poor to provide their own dowries. In Athens, the eponymous archon, one of the senior officials, looked out for orphans, widows, destitute houses without male heirs, and other such cases of family inheritance. Naturally, wealthy benefactors and friends of the deceased might also pitch in, and frequently did, according to surviving evidence. In the world of the ancient Greeks, then, inheritance meant receiving a legacy from one’s father and passing that legacy on to one’s male descendants or relatives. Women “inherited” only as a socioeconomic means to marriage and as mothers of their father’s grandsons. Governments intervened in inheritance matters when necessary to keep the lines of family descent going. See also: Economics and Work: Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Extended Family; Fathers; Grandparents; Marriage; Mothers; Sons; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship

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The World of Ancient Greece FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphreys, S. C. 1993. The Family, Women and Death. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. McGinn, T. A. J. 2008. Widows and Patriarchy: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1994. Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Strauss, L. 1970. Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the Oeconomicus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

LOVE. See FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE MARRIAGE The Greek family was founded on the institution of marriage. From their literature, especially poetry and plays, we learn just how open the ancient Greeks were in expressing the desire for romance in marriage, as well as less-than-noble motivations for marriage (like trying to get one’s hands on a spouse’s fortune or hoping to flaunt the good looks or status of a new spouse for personal gain). Greeks may have entertained such notions in their daily lives, but these were usually fantasies, reflecting inner wishes perhaps rather than realities. In any case, Greek society would never have sanctioned marrying out of such self-centered goals or, for that

Family and Gender: Marriage

matter, even just for love. The reality was that ancient Greek boys and girls grew up believing in only two acceptable purposes for getting married: to produce legitimate heirs to the family’s possessions and (thereby) to perpetuate the family and its traditions. Marriages in the Greek world were almost always arranged affairs, set up by the bride’s father (or legal guardian) and the prospective groom, perhaps with the assistance of a matchmaker. Marriages among close relatives (cousins perhaps, or even uncles and nieces, as at Athens) were, therefore, not uncommon, either because a family wanted to protect its assets or to reunite previously divided properties. Furthermore, marriages had to be contracted within boundaries established by one’s community; city-states regulated by law who could and could not get legally married, typically in order to preserve certain privileges, like citizenship or free status. A bride exercised little say in these contractual agreements; even the groom might have been pushed into the match by his own family elders. Indeed, unless a person was considered unfit for marriage, because of some mental or physical disability, debilitating illness, or extreme poverty, Greeks believed it was one’s obligation to follow the directives of one’s family and marry. Choosing to remain unmarried was not regarded as an option for eligible women at all and for men it would have been regarded as antisocial or, at best, strange. Families with daughters hoped to marry them off as soon as possible (that is, around the ages of fourteen to sixteen) in order to reduce the financial burden of raising them further, to minimize the chances that daughters would dishonor the family by becoming pregnant while unmarried (in which case, it might be simply impossible to find them a willing husband), and, as they saw it in those days, to maximize the reproductive benefits of a woman’s short lifespan. Grooms were often much older than their brides; in Athens, for example, it was fairly common for a fifteen-year-old bride to marry a thirty-year-old groom. The reasons again were strictly practical: a man in his late twenties or early thirties had already completed the most important portion of his compulsory military service and his parents or other family members had by then handed over to him his inheritance; he was, thus, a doubly responsible, eligible husband and propertied veteran. Not all Greeks agreed with this standard practice. In Athens itself, the philosopher Plato clearly objected to it, advocating instead that the best ages for marriage were twenty for the woman and thirty for the man, when they would be more compatibly mature and knowledgeable about life. Yet his words carried little weight perhaps, considering that he never married, which would have been taken as a blatant rejection of his duty to perpetuate both his family and his city-state. Most divergent were the Spartan marriage customs. In their society, men “stole” their brides from their families (with the latter’s approval, of course),

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basing their selection of a woman ideally on her physical strength and supposed child-rearing capability, rather than her family’s connections or property. Spartan men and women married relatively close in age (likely where Plato got his idea), probably another reflection of their society’s beliefs regarding optimal procreative potential. Such differences from typical Greek marriage should not be surprising, considering that the Spartans did not practice typical family life. Spartan husbands lived in military barracks apart from their wives; new brides cut their hair short and dressed in men’s clothing, and their husbands visited them in secret, and at night, in order to engage in “more productive” sexual relations. Spartan husbands and wives lived essentially segregated from one another. In other Greek communities, in the more affluent homes, segregation of the spouses became an ideal; a wife in such circumstances was expected to remain indoors and often in a separate section of the house from her husband. Most Greek husbands and wives, however, could not afford to live this way. Instead, they tended to spend a great deal of time together each day. They had to work their family farms or artisanal shops or tend livestock; close cooperation was a must in such endeavors where each spouse contributed his or her particular labor to accomplish different tasks essential for survival and success of the family. The typical differences in spousal ages and the lack of premarital knowledge of one another, compounded by customs of segregation in many cases, threatened Greek marriages; wives were expected to obey their husband, but their circumstances had the strong potential of generating rebelliousness and marital strife. Most Greek couples, and their relatives, put a premium, therefore, on marital harmony, often carefully cultivated and discussed even by philosophers (if we are to believe Xenophon, pupil of Socrates). No wonder so many Greek plays, especially comedies, satirized the tense relations between married couples and the attempts of wives to assert some level of independence from or control over their husbands. In the world of the ancient Greeks, then, marriage was typically a contract between individuals, an alliance between families, and a major concern of the state. It was not a matter of love but of practical interests. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Landownership; Family and Gender: Adultery; Blended Families; Childbirth and Infancy; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Extended Family; Fathers; Friendship and Love; Inheritance; Mothers; Sexuality; Sons; Weddings; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Prostitutes and Courtesans; Primary Documents: Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE); Xenophon on the Roles of Wife and Husband (c. 362 BCE)

Family and Gender: Men FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

MEN Men and women exercised very different roles in the world of the ancient Greeks. In most places, men held the superior position as the “natural ruler,” to cite the opinion of the philosopher Aristotle. Both men and women worked in Greek society, unless they were affluent enough to afford servants to do the work for them, but women were the primary caretakers of the children. Both men and women participated in the religious life of their communities, but men spent more time outside the home and engaged in civic duties, like voting, holding public office, and serving in the military, from which women were excluded. Male children grew up in the care of their mothers (or nannies and nurses) in most Greek communities, Sparta being the principal exception, where boys were taken by state officials from their families at age seven to be raised by the state with other young males. In those city-states, like Athens, where segregation of the sexes took place inside the homes of families that could afford to do so, boys under the age of sixteen spent their young lives with the women and female children of the household in the gynaikoˉnitis, the women’s section of the home. In their early years, most Greek boys would have been taught the basic customs of their society and the traditions of their family in the company of their mothers. Most also would have started working at a young age in the family business (say, farming or masonry) or been apprenticed to someone outside the family to learn a means of support. Some enjoyed the opportunity of schooling in grammar, literature, and the arts under private tutors, if their fathers deemed it appropriate and affordable. Only boys from elite families, like the Alcmaeonid Alcibiades of Athens, would have had the leisure and the wealth to indulge in expensive pastimes (like racing horses) while growing up.

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Boys could not participate in the activities of the androˉn, the men’s quarters comprising one or more rooms in the family home, until they had reached the appropriate age. In the meantime, they would have gone through various methods of marking their transition into manhood, which differed from community to community. At Athens, for instance, the first stage of a boy’s entry into adulthood came at age sixteen, when his father presented him to his phratry, a brotherhood or mutual aid society; here, the ceremony of the apatouria, ritual first haircutting, was performed. The second stage took place at age eighteen, when the young man was registered with his father’s deme (neighborhood or village) as a citizen of Athens. In many Greek communities, including Athens, the age of eighteen also marked when a young male was said to be his own kyrios, legally responsible for himself, even if he still resided in the home of his parents (which most did). The young man then would have been invited into the androˉn and known that he had made the transition into manhood. When at home, the adult males of the family spent most of their time in the androˉn, socializing and dining together along with their male guests and associating with female courtesans; this was also the scene of the symposia, or drinking parties, immortalized in Greek literature and painting, in which the young men could now participate. Athenian males at this stage also entered the ephe¯beia, or youth corps, for two years of mandatory military training; in comparison, their Spartan counterparts had been engaged in military training since the age of seven. Regardless of the local customs, Greek society was a society of war that valued physical strength, bravery, courage, and fighting skill in its males. Greek boys were raised from childhood on the tales of the legendary heroes of old, like Achilles and Hector, and sought to grow up to be just like them. Hector had once remarked that war was the business of men and prayed that his little son, Astyanax, would become one day a strong and brave warrior who would bring home the bloodstained armor of his enemies. In a society that placed high value on such sentiments, it should not surprise that Greeks had no aversion to labeling men with various terms for cowardice (anandria, atolmia, deilia) if they failed in their military preparation or duties. The Macedonians punished warriors for their failures by forcing them to dress up in a woman’s halter, revealing clearly the chauvinistic attitude of their society toward gender roles. The Spartans, not surprisingly, were most harsh in this regard, exiling those who displayed such deficiency in “manliness.” At the conclusion of an Athenian male’s military training, at about age twenty, he was allowed to take his place among the voting men who participated in the ekkle¯sia; a Spartan male could do the same in his community (voting in the apella) ten years later. By that age, the Athenian man could hold public office. A fully adult male in most places was eligible from that age to be called up for active military service and other forms of duty to his community until he turned sixty. Education,

Family and Gender: Men

warfare, and politics provided Greek males with many options for developing friendships and other sorts of associations outside of the home. Depending on the customs of their community, Greek men married and began having children as early as age twenty or as late as age thirty. Such men then took up the role of kyrios for their wives and children; they had complete command over them and the serious responsibility of protecting and taking care of them; they had authority over all the property of their family as well. By the late fifth century BCE, if not earlier, Greek husbands were taking into consideration the concerns of their wives and not treating them always as their “wards.” For instance, the historian Xenophon in his Symposium had the character Charmides tease the newlywed Niceratus for wanting to eat onions during their gathering; Charmides asserts that a wife would not suspect her husband of playing around if he came home smelling of onions. Clearly, some husbands at least sought to mitigate any criticisms or suspicions on the part of their wives. Nearly half a century later, the New Comic playwright Alexis of Thurii could write of married men as the slaves of their wives, having no freedom of speech and having to deal with a wife’s controlling personality, suspiciousness, bitterness, and quick anger; men are so different, Alexis has one of his characters insist, forgiving and forgetting insults and quarrels so easily! Regardless of any shifting dynamics in the relations of husbands and wives in the Late Classical Age, only men could serve as kyrioi in the sense of being legal guardians in Greek society. Even the grown women in their households, like widowed mothers, unwed sisters, aunts, or cousins, would fall under this guardianship; a man could, thus, be the guardian of his parents or grandparents when they lived under his legal authority. The ancient Greeks, then, did not simply take the onset of puberty as the making of a man. Moreover, even though most regarded age forty as the peak of manhood, they did not simply regard reaching a certain age as enough to define a man. Instead, they saw the real difference between childhood and adulthood for males as a matter of experience, responsibility, and character. As seen above, a man’s parents or the institutions of his particular community provided the opportunities for experience that would prepare him for his economic, familial, and civic responsibilities as an adult within that community. Hopefully, along his journey of experience, a Greek male shaped his character into what his community expected of him. In most locales, this meant transforming from a frivolous, reckless, and foolish youth into a temperate, reasonable, and competent adult, in other words, an evolution from his younger self; even the Homeric heroes whom he idolized as a youth were not to be imitated in their demonstrative emotionalism by the adult male in society, or at least this was a goal strived for in Classical times. The expectations of manhood in the world of the ancient Greeks, then, shared many similarities across

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time and space but in essence conformed to what each community needed from its full-fledged citizens. See also: Arts: History; Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Landownership; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Extended Family; Fathers; Friendship and Love; Grandparents; Inheritance; Marriage; Mourning/Memorialization; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Cavalry; Citizenship; Hoplite Soldiers; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Priests and Priestesses; Science and Technology: Education; Primary Documents: Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE); Poetry—Greek Poets on War FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998 Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Foxhall, L., and J. Salmon, eds. 1998a. Thinking Men: Masculinity and Its Self-­ Representation in the Classical Tradition. London and New York: Routledge. Foxhall, L., and J. Salmon, eds. 1998b. When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in Classical Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kleijwegt, M. 1991. Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lambert, R. 1993. The Phratries of Attica. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. MacDowell, D. M. 1978. The Law in Classical Athens. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Neils, J., and J. H. Oakley, eds. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Family and Gender: Mothers Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosen, R. M., and I. Sluiter, eds. 2003. Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity. Leiden: Brill.

MOTHERS When the Archaic poet Simonides of Ceos described the different sorts of women by comparing each to a different animal, he referred to the best woman, the good wife and mother, as the best of insects, the honeybee. Mothers (me¯teres, sing. me¯te¯r) in the world of the ancient Greeks, then, enjoyed a status of high respect. Indeed, a woman was seen as incomplete and still childlike if she had never been a mother. Ancient Greek mothers did not have legal authority over their children; some ancient Greek playwrights and philosophers even denied the validity of maternal parentage. For instance, Aeschylus in his Eumenides has both the god Apollo and especially the goddess Athena insist that the father is the only parent of the child and, hence, the only one to whom the child (in this case, Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra) had any sort of obligation. Aristotle went so far as to assert that mothers merely nurtured the child in the womb, contributing nothing to what moderns would call its genetic makeup. On the other hand, medical writers, particularly those in the Hippocratic tradition, regarded children as the product of the mother’s and the father’s “seed” coming together, and citizenship laws in a number of Greek communities, as in Periclean Athens, guaranteed the role of the citizen mother in her children’s status as citizens. Motherhood served as an important rite of passage for Greek women from youth into adulthood and from their natal family into their marital family. Although she had joined her husband’s family and come under his legal authority, a Greek bride was still under the legal power of her father to a certain extent, as if she were still a youngster, until she had given her husband a child. By the same token, motherhood guaranteed her sense of belonging fully among her husband’s relations. Indeed, a woman’s relatives, such as her father, brother, or uncle, could file for divorce, technically on her behalf, in cases of childlessness. Not surprisingly, anxiety among women about sterility is highly documented at healing sanctuaries and in medical texts. Thus, becoming a mother was considered a sort of essential right in Greek society. As if their worries about childlessness were not enough, the high likelihood of infant mortality encouraged ancient Greek mothers, and fathers, to maintain an emotional distance early on from their newborn babies. Mothers, for instance, likely provided some input in the naming of their children, but ancient Greek

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convention said that this was primarily the father’s responsibility, not the mother’s. Still, she did receive gifts during the feast on the tenth day after the baby’s birth, thus rewarded by family and friends for her “success.” Although some ancient Greek families had the wherewithal to hire nurses and nannies for the care of their young children, even these were supervised by mothers. In any case, biological mothers served as the main caregivers for and early educators of their sons and daughters. The historian Xenophon recounted a story about Socrates once scolding his eldest son for displaying ingratitude toward his mother, Xanthippe. The philosopher reminded his son of things that many Greeks would have acknowledged: how a mother endures incredible hardship in labor to bring forth her child and then years of trial and error in attempting to please, protect, and rear the child as best she can, praying for its welfare ceaselessly, and often receiving no thanks for doing so. Socrates (that is, Xenophon) also spoke of how mothers either taught their children or sent them to those who could. Mothers in ancient Greece had the option of handing their daughters over to tutors at around age six or of keeping them under their own tutelage in the knowledge and skills they would need for the future; sons were more likely to study under tutors or to be apprenticed to experts in various fields of endeavor from the same age onward and, thus, to begin a life more separate from their mothers. Yet mothers could continue to have tremendous influence on the future careers of their sons as well as their daughters. For instance, Arete, a leading member of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, taught her son, Aristippus the Younger, who was therefore fondly referred to as me¯trodidaktos, “mother instructed.” By the same token, the female poets Hedyle of Samos and Moero of Byzantium passed their talents on to their respective sons, Hedylus and Homeros, both very well known in Hellenistic Alexandria; in fact, Hedyle had received her training from her own poet-mother, Moschine. The philosopher Plato’s legacy lived on through his sister Potone and her son Speusippos, as did that of the playwright Aeschylus through the children and grandchildren of his sister Philopatho. Alexander the Great received his tutoring from Aristotle in part thanks to his mother Olympias, to whom the prince was much closer than to his father; Olympias set the standard for the Greek queens of the Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE) in terms of undisguised involvement in their royal children’s political affairs. Mothers were also recorded as having had negative effects on their children. In his Clouds, for instance, the Old Comedy playwright Aristophanes famously satirized the spoiling of a son (Phidippides) by his mother, something that must have been a common enough experience among the upper classes in Greek society. The philosopher Plato in his Republic has Socrates describe an ungrateful and immoderate wife who wished her husband were more successful and aggressive

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in public affairs and filled her son’s head with such criticisms in order to turn him against his father. Divorced mothers lost custody over their children and, apparently, had little, if any, involvement in their lives from that point on. Widowed mothers, however, of whom there must have been many considering the circumstances of health and warfare in the ancient Greek world, evidently played an even more critical role in their children’s lives, often continuing to live in their husband’s home with the support of his relatives as well as her own, and thereby working to perpetuate the family’s joint traditions. In some places, as at Athens, they came under the protection of public officials, especially if widowed and pregnant. Widowed mothers had to exercise great caution when considering remarriage so as not to endanger the inheritance of their children and, even if they remained unmarried, they might have troublesome in-laws to contend with, as did Cleobule, mother of the Athenian speechwriter Demosthenes. When at the young age of seven Demosthenes lost his father, Cleobule tried to raise and protect her son as best she could (bravely, but unsuccessfully) against rapacious and incompetent in-laws. Mothers and daughters enjoyed close bonds of affection, as revealed by funerary monuments. An epitaph from Athens (c. 380 BCE) shows a mother mourning the loss of her married daughter (Polyxena), herself recently a mother, while another tomb (mid-fourth century BCE) portrays the close friendship of a mother (Hieroclea) and daughter (Myrtis) shaking hands in welcome. A late fourth century BCE tomb commemorates the unending love of a mother (Timagora) for her deceased daughter (Philocydis) and the taking up of the responsibility of raising her orphaned granddaughter (Eucleia), while a late fifth-century BCE tomb records the close relationship between grandmother (Ampharete) and granddaughter (who died as a child), both of whom were interred together. Despite the separation of the sexes according to prescribed gender roles in Greek society, sons and mothers enjoyed similar bonds. For instance, Xenoclea (whose tombstone in the Piraeus can be dated to around 360 BCE) died from extreme grief over the loss at sea of her eight-year-old son; this reminds us of the famous story of Odysseus’ mother, Anticleia, who died from the strain of her son’s long absence and presumed death (and we are reminded of their emotional reunion during the hero’s visit to the underworld). Indeed, bonds between sons and mothers were sometimes even stronger than those between daughters and mothers because grown sons typically acted as the guardians of their mothers in old age. Socrates (that is, Plato) castigated the son who would try to dispossess his mother and advised, instead, the deepest respect of son for mother. An Athenian man named Telemachus (mid-fourth century BCE) chose to be buried close to his mother, Melite, out of his deep love for her; he was probably her guardian at the end of her days.

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Mothers took great pride in their children and in their role as good mothers. For instance, when an Athenian woman named Melinna (fourth century BCE) made an offering of some of her handiwork to Athena Ergane, she included an inscription commemorating how she raised her children with courage and justice, supported by her own skillful work. Spartan women famously claimed that they were the only mothers who gave birth to “real” men. Indeed, Spartan mothers, perhaps more than any others in the ancient Greek world, impressed the moral code and customs of their people upon their children, especially their sons; no one could ever forget the Spartan mother (sometimes identified as Gorgo, wife of Leonidas) who told her son to come back with his shield in victory or dead upon it! In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle asserted quite matter-of-factly that mothers loved their children more than fathers did and in a more unconditional and selfsacrificing way. Certainly, most Greeks would have agreed with this assertion and they enshrined this notion of motherhood in the image of Demeter, goddess of the harvest. The abduction of her daughter, Persephone, by Hades brought Demeter such grief that she allowed every growing thing on earth to go dead, plunging the land into seasons of barrenness until Zeus intervened to reunite mother and daughter for at least a portion of each year. All over the Greek world, people commemorated the divine mother’s sorrows and joys and especially at Eleusis near Athens men and women sought to share in those experiences through ritual initiation. In ancient Greek society, then, motherhood was the essential goal of every woman and devoted motherhood carried with it a mystical dimension. Mothers may not have had as much legal control over their children as fathers did, but citizens in most Greek communities determined their status from that of their mother as much as their father. Mothers certainly exercised enormous influence upon their daughters and their sons in a myriad of ways. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Landownership; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Extended Family; Fathers; Friendship and Love; Grandparents; Inheritance; Marriage; Men; Mourning/Memorialization; Sons; Weddings; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries; Olympian Gods; Priests and Priestesses; Science and Technology: Biology; Education; Medicine FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Family and Gender: Mourning/Memorialization Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Connelly, J. 2007. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dignas, B., and K. Trampedach, eds. 2008. Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Officials from Homer to Heliodorus. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies. Dillon, M. 2001. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London and New York: Routledge. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphreys, S. C. 1993. The Family, Women and Death. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Kraemer, R. S. 1992. Her Share of the Blessings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. McGinn, T. A. J. 2008. Widows and Patriarchy: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Slater, P. E. 1968. The Glory of Hera. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Watson, P. A. 1995. Ancient Stepmothers: Myth, Misogyny and Reality. Leiden: Brill.

MOURNING/MEMORIALIZATION Ancient Greeks believed that the spirits of their deceased loved ones were consoled at the loss of life by the various ways in which the still-living remembered them. This typically took the form of rituals of mourning at particular points in time

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undertaken by members of the deceased’s family or close friends. Communities also grieved the loss of those who died on their behalf through collective, public mourning rituals, especially in the form of funeral orations and memorials. Mourning naturally played a large part in funeral rites for the deceased. Persons close to the deceased lamented over the body, and unlike what might be seen at most modern funerals, the ancient Greeks expected very open and loud lamentation, verbal and physical, especially on the part of the women from the deceased’s family. Female relatives in mourning might even harm themselves as they cried and screamed over the deceased, by tearing out locks of their own hair, for instance, or gouging their faces and arms with their fingernails. In these ways, the lament of loved ones displayed to all present the extent of their grief; the pain of loss was not concealed or held back. Furthermore, in many cases, families or friends also hired professional mourners, men and especially women, to “perform” at the funeral. They engaged in

Terracotta funerary plaque depicting the Greek custom of laying out of the dead, or prothesis, originally from the wall of an Athenian tomb, c. 520–510 BCE. Male and female mourners surround the deceased’s funeral couch in a variety of ritual gestures while a close family member lays out the body. Below, a scene of a chariot race recalls the ritual games for the dead performed by heroes of Greek legend and by members of the Athenian aristocracy. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1954)

Family and Gender: Mourning/Memorialization

ritualized chanting (singing a thre¯nos, or dirge) and the same sort of lamentation as loved ones, often even more exaggerated in emotionalism. No wonder that, according to tradition, the Athenian lawgiver, Solon, attempted to curb such funereal grandstanding in a series of legal restrictions on the lying in state of the corpse. Such mourning continued throughout the funeral process until the actual interment of the deceased. Afterward, it took the form of memorialization in several ways. First of all, many Greeks received grave markers (ste¯lae); this tradition stretched back to Mycenaean times (c. 1700–1100 BCE) and by the Classical Age (490–323 BCE) such ste¯lae were inscribed with information about the deceased and often portrayed the deceased as well, making them marvelous works of art as well as permanent testaments to grief; the inscriptions on grave markers tended to be short and might take the form of poetic verses lovingly and sorrowfully describing qualities of the deceased. Secondly, the deceased were remembered through a series of three sacrifices performed in a designated period of time after the funeral. At Athens, for instance, the rituals took place on the third, ninth, and thirtieth days after the interment, the “ninth-day rite” being the most revered. Little is known of what took place at such rituals, but clearly they entailed offerings (animals, food, milk, wine, oil, honey, or other valued items) to the gods of the underworld and to the spirit of the deceased. With the completion of such rites, the period of formal mourning ended; family and friends had thereby completed their primary obligation to the deceased. Yet such obligation never really ended. As long as a family existed (and most Greek communities dedicated themselves quite seriously to the perpetuation of their families), it had to maintain the cult of dead ancestors; indeed, candidates for office in Athens, for example, were investigated to prove that they had fulfilled all their duties to ancestors as the community expected of them. Families visited the graves of deceased loved ones and made offerings to their spirits on a regular basis during the year and especially on the anniversary of the deceased’s passing. Frequently, this consisted of pouring wine and oil on the ground around the gravesite as a libation, making an oblation of food, especially special cakes, and decorating the gravesite with flowers, ivy, and other vegetation. Whatever was used for the sake of the dead remained with them; one did not take utensils or food home from a funereal or mourning ritual. Hence why so many white lekythoi have been discovered at Greek grave sites; they served as oil jugs for the rites performed at the graveside. Besides mourning the passing of loved ones, Greeks also mourned the possibilities lost with them. For instance, they very often lamented the death of an unwed maiden by placing a loutrophoros next to her grave; this water vessel was used typically in weddings and so would have specifically reminded the mourners of what the deceased would not have had in her life.

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To ignore such regular rituals was to invite scorn and disgrace from one’s community and worse from the spirits of the deceased. The community, too, had its role to play when those who had died did so in service to their country. City-states erected grave markers or even sculpture groups to mourn the loss of such civic heroes; to quote from the famous epitaph for Athenian troops who died during the Siege of Potidaea (432 BCE), “This city and the people of Erechtheus [a founding hero of Athens] mourn the men [who died] . . . sons of Athenians, placing their lives in exchange for glory and bringing honor to their native land.” Communities would often hire Sophists, experts in speechwriting, to deliver the logos epitaphios, a public eulogy, in honor of the fallen who were granted a public funeral; such eulogies featured prominently in annual commemorations for the fallen, such as the Athenian Genesia and Epitaphia (akin to our Memorial Day and Veterans Day), each of which included sacrifices to the dead and the gods and communal feasting. In addition, such ceremonies of remembrance and mourning included musical and athletic contests, a tradition which the community inherited from its aristocratic families, who had long honored their loved ones that had passed away through funeral games on the anniversary of their deaths. Many prominent citizens from Athens composed or delivered funeral orations, but the most famous from ancient Greek times is no doubt the one preserved (largely invented, in fact) by the historian Thucydides, who claimed to be recording the words of the Athenian general and statesman, Pericles. In 431 BCE, Pericles spoke to the assembled Athenians in mourning over the first of their troopers to have fallen in battle against the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides describes the process of public mourning as a hybrid of rites familiar from private burials (such as lying in state and emotional lamentation) and military traditions (such as grouping corpses according to tribes, as in battle order); the speech recorded of Pericles confirms the expectation that public mourning was to be much more somber than private and much more focused on the communal qualities represented by the deceased rather than any personalized details. If we can believe Thucydides, Pericles offered the grief-stricken not condolences but comfort and encouragement, reminding them of the glory and bravery of the deceased and their everlasting fame, which, despite the circumstances, should be regarded as a gain rather than a loss. Mourning could, understandably, take on enormous proportions, which explains why governments and individual leaders from across the Greek world established regulations to keep excessive mourning in check. Yet this did not detract in any way from the importance in which the ancient Greeks held their formal expressions of grief for those whom they had lost to death. They considered their customs regarding mourning some of the most significant indicators of their identity as families, communities, and, indeed, Greeks.

Family and Gender: Play

See also: Arts: History; Music; Rhetoric; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Sophists; Family and Gender: Burial; Death and Dying; Men; Women; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Libations and Offerings; Science and Technology: Inscriptions FURTHER READING Boardman, J., and D. Kurtz. 1971. Greek Burial Customs. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Morris, I. 1987. Burial and Ancient Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morris, I. 1992. Death-Ritual and Social Structures in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ziolkowski, J. 1981. Thucydides and the Tradition of Funeral Speeches at Athens. New York: Arno Press.

PLAY Childhood fun is vividly depicted in ancient Greek artworks and described variously in forms of literature ranging from sentimental poetry to serious philosophy. Available evidence reveals that ancient Greek boys and girls found time to play with a variety of handmade (often homemade) toys and at all sorts of games. Toys ( paignia) in the ancient Greek world seem to have served the same purpose that they often do in modern times, to provide children with their own parallels to adult experiences. For instance, paintings on some extant choes (terracotta children’s drinking jugs used in the wintertime Anthesteria festival at Athens) show little babies pushing carts. Such wheeled toys (hamaxides) in wood and metal replicated in miniature the vehicles employed by adults in real life. Greek children, then, could create worlds of pretending using various sizes of toy chariots, wagons, and carts. Some chariots were large enough to be pulled by a child’s pet donkey or even had sails attached to a rigging that would allow them to be propelled by the wind. Rear-wheeled pull-carts were sometimes large enough to be harnessed to the child himself or herself for the making of adventures. Greek children, just like modern ones, similarly enjoyed playing in the water with miniaturized versions of wooden boats. By the same token, Greek boys and girls had wooden hobbyhorses, wheeled horses, and rocking horses upon which they pretended to ride like a grown-up, as well as other toy animals in wood or terracotta with which they fantasized

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about being farmers or shepherds. Girls also pretended to raise children by playing with terracotta dolls (like those that have survived from late eighth-century BCE Boeotia), as well as wooden dolls and rag dolls, referred to generically as korai (maidens) or nania (dwarfs), and sometimes as andriantiskoi (little guys). Evidence suggests that most Greek dolls resembled in their features young adults rather than babies. Parents purchased from artisans or themselves made all sorts of accoutrements for children’s dolls, including changes of shoes and clothing, items for work, and dollhouses with all the furnishings! Dolls were often stiff, but some models consisted of jointed movable parts, especially those that could be used in puppet shows. As part of the rituals at the Daedala, a Boeotian festival held every four years in honor of Zeus and Hera (and involving wooden ritual statues named for the marvelous Cretan inventor Daedalus), girls even dressed up their dolls in bridal gowns. Greek children also played with toys that had more of the pure fun or interest about them. They seem to have been fascinated with metal, terracotta, or wooden spinning-tops (rhomboi, stromboi, bembikes) and yo-yos (kykloi), the latter made like threading spools. They enjoyed making noise with metal bells (koˉdoˉnes), clappers of hinged wood (krotala), and rattles (  platagai). The rattle was very popular with infants and toddlers. It might be made of a metal frame with various sorts of beads or discs loosely inserted to allow the rattling sound, but examples have also been found in the graves of Greek children consisting of clay animals (turtles, rabbits, ducks, monkeys, and so on) and clay people containing little stones inside; when shaken, these produced the desired rattling sound. Babies’ charm necklaces (gnoˉrismata), utilized for identification, were also played with as rattles. All of these noisemaking toys served the additional purpose of warding off what moderns would call the “Evil Eye,” the supernatural force of envious destruction in which many ancient Greeks firmly believed. Toys also promoted exercise as well as fun, like swings (aiorai, similar to the modern homemade variety but sometimes with a basket), wooden seesaws, and kites of cloth. Ancient Greek boys and girls engaged in an array of games for fun. Some involved guessing, as in daktuloˉn epallaxis, similar to Italian morra today. Two players flashed a certain number of fingers of their right hand at one another and the player who could at the same time correctly guess and call out the total number of fingers shown by both would win. Other games involved pretending to be adults, as in basilinda. One player, selected either by lot or by how many times he was able to bounce a ball more than his opponents, was given the title of king (basileus) and allowed to command the others as slaves or soldiers. A number of children’s games involved running, chasing, and blindfolding. For example, in a game of tag called chelicheloˉne¯ (tortoise), the “it” player sat like

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a turtle answering questions from the others until she jumped up and chased them, trying to make one of them take her place. Similarly, another game had one player pursuing others while handicapped by a blindfold (chalke¯ muia, “the copper fly”), as in today’s blindman’s bluff. In ostrakinda, two sets of players, wearing white (day) or black (night) tokens, respectively, stood opposite each other; one player, probably chosen by lot, threw an ostracon at a line on the ground. If the potsherd landed with its black-painted side up, then the “white” players would have to run for it and avoid being caught by the “black” players; if the white-painted side of the ostracon landed up, then the opposite happened. Piggyback games (ephedrismoi) also existed. In one version, a player who had lost at tossing stones or pebbles at a target was then required to carry his or her opponent on the back while the latter covered the former’s eyes so the carrying player did not know where he or she was going and then had to follow the rider’s instructions to reach a goal point. Boys also raced each other in the krike¯lasia, a running game involving hoops (krikoi or trochoi). Each player had a large hoop of iron or copper fitted with loose metal rings that jangled as he drove it down the racing course by means of a longhandled hook (elate¯r). Both Greek children and adults played lots of games involving balls (sphairai), with or without teams. The Spartans were given credit for first developing ballgames, as part of military training; they even held an annual sphairomachia (ball war) tournament among fourteen-player teams of young men, which seems to have included tackling as in modern football. Many Greek gymnasia contained a purpose-built sphairiste¯rion, or ball-court, for the men who exercised there; they probably engaged in games of diaphore¯ma, or dodgeball. Outdoors, children played chytrinda, which seems to have been equivalent to the modern game of catch. They also apparently engaged in a ballgame from piggyback. A piece of the Wall of Themistocles in the Athens Museum shows two groups of players standing behind their respective leaders, who are themselves hunched over a sort of handball, or harpaston (probably made of wool or tow); they have the ball surrounded by what look like modern hockey sticks. Scholars are not sure whether this was a team sport or played one-on-one. In addition to more physically active games like those mentioned, Greek children also engaged in a variety of board games (  petteia). The oldest forms are mentioned by the poet Homer, but he fails to describe them in detail. We know of one game where the board was divided into spaces by five parallel lines ( pente grammai) and the players used five stones. They had a game of strategy called polis, “city-state,” in which the board was divided into squares apparently representing cities, and the players, using different colored pieces, attempted to capture their opponent’s pieces.

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Dice games (kubos) were another popular form of play, especially among adults. The dice looked very much like their modern counterparts, and the Greeks sometimes used a sort of dice cup (ke¯this) to achieve more random throws of the dice. They hoped for double- or triple-sixes (hexite¯s), depending on whether two or three dice were thrown (typically three), which they nicknamed the Aphrodite throw, and feared double- or triple-ones, which they nicknamed the dog throw (kuoˉn or kunoˉtos). They also played dice games using astragaloi (actual animal knucklebones, or ceramic or bronze imitations, or walnuts). Games involving astragaloi appear to have been especially popular among Greek girls and women, as were those involving marbles (aktaiai) and pebbles (lithoi). They enjoyed shooting marbles down prepared lanes (often designed with traps and other obstacles, as in a modern miniature-golf course) to hit a target hole at the end. They were particularly fond of pentelithoi, a game of dexterity perhaps similar to modern jacks in which five pebbles, or similarly small objects, were tossed up in the air by the back of the hand and then caught in rapid succession. Ancient Greek philosophers, like Plato, for example, believed that the right sort of play was a crucial method of molding personality in children. The Greeks took play so seriously that they even composed books on the various Greek games (though none of these have survived). Some forms of game-playing continued into adulthood or were transformed into grown-up forms (in athletic contests, for instance), but many did not. In terms of toys, ancient Greek children certainly did not own closets full of them, like so many of their modern counterparts. They had a few, usually well-cherished ones. Upon entering adult life as citizens and wives, Greek adolescents typically dedicated their toys to the gods. In the world of the ancient Greeks, such forms of play thus formally ended with childhood. See also: Arts: Dance; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Family and Gender: Blended Families; Childhood and Youth; Daughters; Extended Family; Marriage; Men; Sons; Weddings; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Leisure Activities; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings FURTHER READING Cohen, A., and J. B. Butler, eds. 2007. Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life. London: Duckworth. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Classical Athens. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hamilton, R. 1992. Choes and Anthesteria. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Family and Gender: Sexuality Harris, R. A. 1972. Sport in Greece and Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. London: Duckworth. Kleijwegt, M. 1991. Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Klein, A. E. 1932. Child Life in Greek Art. New York: Columbia University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Neils, J., and J. H. Oakley, eds. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven, NY: Yale University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

SEXUALITY Anyone with even the most passing familiarity with the art of the ancient Greeks will notice how open they were about sexuality. For them, it was an entirely natural feature of the human condition, not something to denigrate; surely, it was necessary for continuation of the species, but it was also a source of enjoyment and pleasure. The ancient Greeks celebrated sexuality more than most ancient societies (with the possible exception of the Egyptians), but still within certain societally determined limitations. The Greeks referred to the sex act itself in a variety of euphemistic ways, just as modern people do, including phrases translatable as “to sleep with” or “to go to bed with,” “to meet up with,” “to ungirdle,” “to communicate,” “to mingle,” “to grind,” “to strike,” “to exercise,” “to unite,” and so on. Perhaps the most common way of referring to sex was by terms associated with Aphrodite, goddess of physical love, such as aphrodisiasmos or ta Aphrodisia. Certainly, sexuality found its chief purpose in ancient Greek society in the desire for offspring within marriage. Ancient Greeks expected respectable unmarried girls to refrain from premarital sexual activity and adult women to refrain from it outside of their marriages. In other words, Greek females were supposed to engage in sex in the interests of bearing legitimate children and avoid any possibility of becoming pregnant by someone not their husband. They were technically denied a healthy, independent sex life. Indeed, for them to experience anteroˉs (reciprocal desire) even from sexual relations within marriage was seen as improper. Yet there were other voices on the subject of female sexuality. Ancient Greek medical writers, for instance, strenuously asserted the importance of sexual activity in the maintenance of women’s health even more than in men’s. A variety of authors, from historians to poets, relate a stereotype of women as sexually promiscuous, underneath the surface of which is the realization that postpubescent females desired and enjoyed sexual relations (as in the experience of orgasm) just as men

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did. The consequence of such professional and societal notions was to encourage early marriage for Greek females and remarriage upon divorce or widowhood, not acceptance of women’s sexual independence. Ancient Greek society did recognize the pleasure produced through sexuality, but tried to reserve such enjoyment for their male citizens. Greek males, unmarried adolescent boys as well as married and unmarried adult men, had opportunities for sexual gratification. Adolescents (ephe¯likes) might agree to homosexual relations with other males, especially more mature, experienced men; adult males had the option of pederasty, as well as same-sex relations with one another, sexual activity with prostitutes, either female or male, of which there were many across the Greek territories, and long-term sexual partnerships with mistresses or concubines (  pallakai), usually foreign women (such as resident aliens or metics in Athens). Boys and men were not permitted to engage in sex with other men’s wives or even with unmarried citizen girls or women, any of which would land them in court as criminal adulterers, if they did not suffer a worse fate. Sexual assault or rape of freeborn females did happen in ancient Greek society, however. It was always strongly criticized and males who engaged in such crimes were punishable by a variety of fines; even in their myths, the Greeks regarded rapists as akin to tyrants and, therefore, disreputable. Yet Greek males could demand sex from their male or female slaves, even by force, and from foreign women, especially those captured in war, who typically thereby became slaves. Greek society characterized even the men from non-Greek cultures, particularly the cultures of the Ancient Near East, as “effeminate” and, thus, deserving of being sexually dominated by Greek males. Interestingly, in spite of their own vulnerability to sexual exploitation, slaves in the Greek territories, whether Greek or non-Greek, apparently tried to live by the same standards as Greek citizens; inscriptions left behind by such slaves indicate exactly the same attitudes about sex as their masters held. For a Greek citizen woman to take an extramarital lover of any kind, as men did, would have invited dire consequences if discovered, including social ostracism from the scandal and potentially death for herself and her lover, whether male or female. Nonetheless, Greek women did find ways to satisfy their natural sexual desires, for instance, through self-gratification. An example comes from the character Metro in Herodas’ sixth mime (“Women Having a Chat”); she mentions a leather sex-toy, which she describes as a bauboˉna, something with which to euphemistically “lull oneself to sleep.” Within the story, this device has evidently made the rounds among a number of women, all friends or acquaintances of Koritto, who originally purchased it and had not even the chance to make use of it herself. Sex-toys and pornographic materials, including manuals on sexual relations, were thus readily available in the ancient Greek world. Literary and archaeological

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evidence demonstrates the familiarity ancient Greeks had with a variety of sexual positions (standing and reclining) as well as forms of sexual contact other than vaginal penetration. Such alternatives included cunnilingus (which apparently enjoyed a rather low reputation), fellatio (considered a compliment to the recipient), and anal sex (particularly common among Spartan men and homosexual Greeks in general, but regarded also as a method of contraception by married couples). Furthermore, in spite of the often aggressive images of sexual activity in surviving Greek literature and artworks, many also reveal the tenderness of sexuality through kissing, caressing, the making of eye contact, and so on. Such imagery becomes more pronounced in evidence from Hellenistic times, perhaps a consequence of the growing attention paid by authors and audiences in those days to the notions of romantic love and lost love. Still, a double standard clearly operated in the ancient Greek world, where men had more access to sexual relief and sexual enjoyment. The Greeks regarded this as a matter of nature, since the physiology of the male seemed to mark him out as the “active,” “strong” initiator and the physiology of the female seemed to mark her out as the “passive,” “weak” recipient in sexual relations. To reverse these roles, to take on the role of the opposite sex, was regarded as a perversion of nature itself, whether by Greek comic playwrights lambasting their contemporaries or Greek medical scientists attempting to unlock the mysteries of human biology. Sexual abstinence on a long-term basis (sometimes termed amixia, or associated with being unmarried and so termed agamia) did not find much favor in ancient Greek society, except among some philosophical sects (certain Platonists, Pythagoreans, and others). To refrain from sex once an adult, especially for men, would have been seen as unnatural and even antisocial, in the sense of flouting the very behavior that allowed society to survive in the first place. Celibacy in a sexual sense, then, only seemed appropriate under particular religious constraints, as when physical purity was demanded in order to perform rituals of specific kinds. In their world, the ancient Greeks judged sexual activity according to what they considered appropriate behavior for male and female, adolescent and adult, citizen and noncitizen, free person and slave; proper sexuality mattered for the sake of social stability. Yet, at the same time, no ancient society discussed or displayed sexuality more than the ancient Greeks. They never screened it from view, as would have been apparent to anyone strolling past the nude statues that adorned their most artistic cities. After all, even the gods enjoyed sex, so why not humans, too. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Second Sophistic Movement; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Adultery; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and

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Youth; Friendship and Love; Homosexuality; Marriage; Men; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Food and Drink: Potions; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Citizenship; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Priests and Priestesses; Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Biology; Medicine; Primary Documents: Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brooten, B. J. 1996. Love between Women. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cohen, D. 1991. Law, Sexuality, and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, J. 2007. The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Deacy, S., and K. F. Pierce, eds. 1997. Rape in Antiquity: Sexual Violence in the Greek and Roman Worlds. London: Bristol Classical Press. Dean-Jones, L. 1993. Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dover, K. J. 1975. Greek Popular Morality. Indianapolis: Hackett. Dover, K. J. 1978. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foxhall, L., and J. Salmon, eds. 1998. When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in Classical Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Halperin, D.  M., J.  J. Winkler, and F.  I. Zeitlin, eds. 1990. Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Keuls, E.  C. 1985. The Reign of the Phallus. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Larmour, D., P. A. Miller, and C. Platter, eds. 1998. Rethinking Sexuality: Foucault and Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Omitowoju, R. 2002. Rape and the Politics of Consent in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rabinowitz, N. S., and L. Auanger, eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. Austin: University of Texas Press. Sergent, B. 1986. Homosexuality in Greek Myth. Boston: Beacon Press.

Family and Gender: Sons Sissa, G. 2008. Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Skinner, M. B. 2005. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Stewart, A. 1997. Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winkler, J. J. 1990. The Constraints of Desire. London and New York: Routledge. Younger, J., ed. 2004. Sex in the Ancient World from A–Z. London and New York: Routledge.

SONS In the ancient Greek world, sons (huioi, sing. huios) held higher status within the family than daughters. They inherited more of the family property, especially in the form of land, possessed greater rights and responsibilities under the law, and evidently received more attention and consideration than their female siblings. Available evidence from literary and epigraphic sources suggests that a family’s first son was typically named after his paternal grandfather, a second son after his maternal grandfather, and any other sons after their great-grandfathers or other male relations on either the paternal or maternal side. Patterns from epitaphs in Athens suggest that 26 percent of sons (as compared to 14 percent of daughters) had names derived from the root of their father’s own name. All of this led to the frequent repetition of names among the males in Greek families. As in the case of daughters, sons in most Greek communities legally belonged to their fathers and were identified by patronymic (son of so and so); at Athens, they also belonged to the same deme as their father and thus carried his demotic as well (son of so and so, from the deme such and such), and belonged to their father’s phratry, a brotherhood of Athenian men that functioned as a sort of mutual aid society. Athenian fathers brought their sons to the phratry when they turned sixteen for performance of the apatouria (a ceremonial first haircutting), a mark of the son’s entry into manhood, for recognition of the son as one of his father’s legitimate heirs, and for admission of the son into the phratry as one of its lifelong members. Most modern scholars believe that ancient Greek families, particularly those many that lived close to subsistence level, tried harder to limit the number of their daughters than of their sons. In most Greek communities, it seems that sons inherited land from their parents, including the family home, and had the primary responsibility of caring for those parents in their old age, whereas daughters received movable property as their dowries and, under ideal conditions, transferred their primary focus to assisting their husbands in the care of the latter’s parents and family holdings. Both daughters and sons might carry on the religious traditions of their parents, but the latter had the greater responsibility in doing so. At Athens, for instance, a

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man who wanted to serve in the government had to prove to public officials that he was maintaining his parents and their ancestral cults, for otherwise he would be debarred from such service; a daughter never had to prove such things (of course, she never could serve in public office either). Furthermore, sons suffered more greatly if their fathers fell into formal disgrace (atimia) among the citizens of the community, since this hindered their participation in the civic life of the community, which was, by definition, more extensive than that of their sisters. In terms of wider civic life, sons, unlike daughters, entered military training upon attaining legal manhood and, soon after that, a life of involvement in local politics as full-fledged citizens of the polis. Life at war and in politics provided young males in city-states like Athens with many options for developing friendships and other sorts of personal and professional connections with other males. The same was true of schooling and career preparation. Sons were more likely than daughters to have received a broad sort of education, rudimentary for all but the highest classes in society. If not apprenticed to another, sons typically learned their trade from their fathers and thereby carried on the family business, whether farming, artisanship, medicine, performing in the arts, or what have you. For instance, talent in acting, playwriting, painting, sculpting, and music tended to be passed on from father to son. The fourth-century BCE flautist (aule¯te¯s) Potamon of Thebes honored himself and his father Olympichus, from whom he learned his craft, with a grave stele depicting them both. The painters Pausias of Sicyon and Sostratus of Chios taught their respective sons, Aristolaos and Pantias, for example, as did the sculptors Patrocles of Sicyon with his sons Polyclitus and Daedalus and Polycles of Athens with his sons Timocles and Timarchides. Hiero the tragic playwright prepared his son Arcesilaus to become a tragic actor, as did the comic poets Panaetius and Philip with their sons, respectively, Antiphanes and Aristophanes. The great tragedian Aeschylus passed on his playwriting skills to his sons Euphorion and Euaeon, as did the great comic playwright, Aristophanes to his sons Ararus, Philippus, and Nicostratus. Very remarkable were the filial traditions of the family of the sculptor Cephisodotus the Elder of Athens, whose son Praxiteles and grandson Cephisodotus the Younger also achieved fame for the art, or the male descendants of the fourth-century BCE Aristonidas of Rhodes who continued his style of bronzework into the early second century BCE. Similar family traditions appeared in the medical profession as well, and the odes of Pindar recount many sons sharing the athletic abilities, and repeating the victories, of their fathers or grandfathers. In the area of religion, too, priesthoods might be passed down in hereditary fashion within particular clans. A father who had served as priest often left his position to his eldest son, who would then do so with his eldest son, and so on. Priests

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who served the god Poseidon at Halicarnassus, for instance, inherited that position from their fathers, passing it along in turn from eldest son to youngest son, revealing another possible pattern of filial inheritance. In the absence of sons, whether biological or adopted, nephews in Greek society had great importance as the preservers of ancestral custom, trades, and so on. A good example would be Plato’s nephew Speusippus, son of the philosopher’s sister Potone. Speusippus became heir to his uncle’s headship of the Academy and clearly had been taught by him to become quite a well-respected philosopher himself. Whether married or not, upon reaching adulthood, sons became their own kyrioi, legally masters of themselves. They might still live at home with their parents, however, until they received their inheritance, the timing of which varied from community to community; at Athens, for instance, a son might not inherit from his parents until he reached the age of 30. In the meantime, he performed various military and political services to the state and remained an active member of his natal family. Eventually, the sons would divide up all of the family estate (save the portion of movables or money that went to their sisters as dowries) and one of the sons, typically the eldest, would take on the responsibility of becoming the guardian of the parents (often in the family home). Sons were also principally responsible for providing for the burial of their parents and the tending of their graves on a regular basis, which was associated with the ancestral cult noted previously. Parents sometimes had to bury sons who predeceased them, though, and such memorials reinforce our understanding of the affection shared between sons and parents. For example, the mid-fourth-century BCE tomb of Telemachus mentions how he chose to be buried close to his mother, Melite, in the Piraeus, while the grave stele of Andron (c. 380 BCE) shows him and his sons, one of whom was already dead and buried with him, the other welcomed to join them when his time arrived. The Trojan king Priam, according to Homer, mourned the loss of his fifty sons and the state of helplessness in which their passing left him; Odysseus’ mother, Anticleia, literally died from the emotional strain of her son’s long absence. Such mythical tales remind us how much Greek parents cared for their sons and relied on them for support and protection. Moreover, one of Priam’s sons, Hector, before his demise, had prayed that his own little son, Astyanax, would grow up to be as strong and skillful as himself. The legendary stories of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, and Telemachus, son of Odysseus, echoed this notion that a son should be a sort of replacement of the father, to take up his struggles, having the same friends and the same enemies, and to remember him in case anything should happen to him. Certainly, then, the ancient Greeks set great store in the importance of having sons as living legacies of their parents.

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See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Landownership; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Clans/Gene¯; Extended Family; Fathers; Friendship and Love; Grandparents; Inheritance; Marriage; Men; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Women; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Cavalry; Citizenship; Hoplite Soldiers; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Priests and Priestesses; Science and Technology: Education; Inscriptions; Medicine; Primary Documents: Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE) FURTHER READING Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Foxhall, L., and J. Salmon, eds. 1998. When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in Classical Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kleijwegt, M. 1991. Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lambert, R. 1993. The Phratries of Attica. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Neils, J., and J. H. Oakley, eds. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D. 1996. Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1979. Theseus as Son and Stepson. London: University of London.

Family and Gender: Weddings

WEDDINGS In ancient Greek society, few things mattered more than legitimate marriage. The means to such a marriage was a proper wedding ceremony. Unlike in modern times, the bride (not to mention the groom) had little to do with the planning of the wedding. From start to finish, the marrying couple followed time-honored traditions and allowed their relations, especially the father of the bride, to make all the wedding arrangements. The actual wedding ceremony among the Greeks could rarely take place without some sort of formal betrothal. This advertised the union of the two families through the bride and groom, hopefully warding off any challenger. The main goal of the betrothal, however, was to settle the arrangement for a dowry, essentially a donation of some kind, from the family of the bride to the groom or his family. If we believe the stories of the epic poet Homer, things were not always done this way; he tells of the groom approaching the bride with a shower of dowry gifts and, naturally, promises of more where those came from. Perhaps this reflects practices among the Greek aristocracy, stretching back to Mycenaean times (c. 1700–1100 BCE); certainly, they were always the ones who could afford such display and such “bribery” of the bride and her family. Later generations of Greeks, however, and probably the average citizens in the Greek world always, could not afford this sort of thing; most Greek men lived just barely at subsistence level, so they needed to make sure that the bride they were taking into their homes could provide something substantial upon which a new family could be built. Therefore, the most common Greek custom was for the bride’s family to promise a dowry, of money, land, livestock, slaves, whatever they could spare, to the groom, who would combine this with his own possessions and wealth as the cumulative foundation for the marriage and the new family unit. On the wedding day itself, the two families made offerings to those gods that protected marriage and mothers, especially Hera, Artemis, and Zeus; the bride herself had already given over a lock of her hair and her childhood possessions to Artemis the night before to gain divine favor. The bride and the groom separately took ritual baths to make themselves pure for one another, the water carried to them by servants or family members in a special ceramic container (loutrophoros or lebes gamikos) and typically drawn from some kind of sacred water source (in Athens, for example, the fountain of Kallirrhoe); they were also anointed with oil and fragrance. The wedding ceremony at the home of the bride’s father (or guardian) followed soon after; very modestly covered from head to toe, her face veiled, the bride was little more than an object. Surrounded by wedding guests, especially members of

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both families, friends, and members of the phratries (mutual aid societies) of the new fathers-inlaw, all of whom served as witnesses, the father of the bride (or her guardian) passed her off to the groom, who himself was typically crowned with ivy; a common phrase employed by the father of the bride in this context was, “I give this woman for the procreation of legitimate children”—not a very romantic or emotive sentiment. The bride’s father (or guardian) then exchanged a handshake with the groom to seal the deal and handed over not only the bride herself but also her dowry. In fact, the dowry was never hers; it simply passed from one male Terracotta wedding vase, or lebes gamikos, illustrating preparations for a wedding ceremony, to the other, who was supposed c. 420 BCE. Attributed to the Naples Painter, the to use it as part of the support for scene has the bride seated in the center looking his new family. into a mirror, while a woman behind her carries a A banquet followed this container of water and a towel for the bride’s prewedding bath and a woman in front of her brings ceremonial exchange of “propa box probably filled with personal ornaments and erties,” provided by the bride’s perfumes. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers family. Among other foods, it Fund, 1906) typically involved the eating of sesame cakes (se¯sama) by all the wedding guests; the sesame seeds were supposed to symbolize, and guarantee, the couple’s fertility. Along similar lines, the bride was expected to eat a quince, a Cydonian apple regarded as having fertilizing properties. As evening descended, everyone joined a grand nighttime procession along the streets of town; typically, the new couple rode together either in a simple chariot or on a wagon, with other members of the wedding party, relatives or friends along with them. The wedding guests escorted them to the groom’s house, singing songs to the couple as they passed, especially the “Song to Hymen,” god of marriage. The mother of the bride and the mother of the groom, each holding lighted torches, led the procession as they walked in front of the wedding wagon; a young

Family and Gender: Weddings

boy accompanied them, someone who had both parents still living, thus himself a symbol of marital fertility and the next generation. Behind the newlyweds, other relatives or servants carried items of the dowry. Once at their new home, the bride would have found the doors decorated with laurel and myrtle, the latter especially regarded as sacred to marriage in Greek society. The new couple retired to their bedroom; their guests remained outside its doors, singing the epithalamia, while the bride removed her veil, showing her face to her husband, typically for the first time (if she had not done so at the banquet). They were then expected to consummate their marriage, the wedding guests still intoning the “Song of the Bedchamber”; its verses called for the couple’s success, but that did not prevent the revelers from adding obscene remarks and jokes about the couple, intended to ward off bad luck and ease the pressure on the newlyweds. In other words, even this very intimate experience, the formal conclusion of the wedding festivities, was enveloped in very public goings-on. Ancient Greeks had no concept of honeymoon; once the wedding night was over, the newlyweds went straight on to the business of making a living together and having children. Since they also had little concept of privacy, it should not surprise us that in the two days that followed the wedding ceremony, all sorts of visitors came to their home bringing gifts to the new couple. Weddings in the ancient Greek world, then, were not expressions of love between two people who had grown to know each other well (since they usually had not), but celebrations of familial unity, future prosperity, and longevity. They served as a rite of passage into full adulthood for the groom and especially for the bride and set them together on a path to fulfill their obligations to their families and to the wider community. See also: Economics and Work: Landownership; Family and Gender: Adultery; Blended Families; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Extended Families; Friendship and Love; Inheritance; Marriage; Mothers; Sexuality; Women; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Prostitutes and Courtesans; Primary Documents: Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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WOMEN Despite the literacy of ancient Greek women, the vast majority of information about their lives, and especially about the expectations for women in Greek society, comes from men. Moreover, even the specimens of writings from ancient Greek women, whether in the form of poetry or inscriptions, tend to reflect the same image of women as do sources from ancient Greek men. The ideal Greek woman was praised for her modesty in public, for her chastity in her marriage, for cleanliness of her body, and for piety in her religious practices. Greek men often referred to women as a “race” distinct from men. Conservative values, especially among urban elites, classed women with children and servants, encouraging them to stay home and take care of their husbands. Yet ancient Greek women led busy and active lives, whether at home or in the outside world. Some ancient Greek communities, such as Athens, appear to have had a desire for a strong separation of the sexes. As youths in the same household, they likely spent a lot of time together, but out in public, Athenian males and females did not have the same opportunities for social interaction. Athens had no public schools, for example; private tutoring and private schooling were available instead, and boys would typically be educated separately from girls, if the latter received any education at all (which they frequently did not and which, in any case, ended by age sixteen). Athenian girls likely found friendships among their schoolmates, but they still spent most of their time at home, learning how to be good wives and mothers when they grew up. Their social interactions were limited largely to members of their own family. Even when they appeared in public, they were chaperoned by male guardians or slaves who kept them distant from young males of other families; even when they participated in the choruses at religious festivals (from age seven), they did so separate from the boys choruses. Each community had its own rites of passage for its women. At Olympia, for example, girls entering puberty dedicated images of themselves to the goddess Hera and ran footraces in her honor to mark their coming of age. In Athens, a girl’s

Family and Gender: Women

entry into womanhood was marked when she reached age sixteen by the apatouria (ritual first haircutting) and by being presented by her father to his phratry, a mutual aid society and brotherhood of Athenian men. After such ceremonies, Greek girls faced imminent marriage to whomever their parents or guardians deemed an appropriate match. In his Tereus, the tragedian Sophocles expresses through the character of Procne what must have been a frequent sentiment among Greek girls in such circumstances: better to remain at home in the care of one’s father and in the innocence of childhood than to be thrown out and yoked up into strange, hostile, or joyless marriages! As wives, the life-paths of women unsurprisingly diverged depending on wealth, status, and other factors. A wife was regarded, in any case, as the manager of her husband’s household, but not typically as his equal partner; in Athens, for instance, she received honor as long as she behaved well and properly, but otherwise her husband was always in charge in all matters relating to the marriage and the family. Male citizens in many Greek communities chose to perpetuate an image of women as overly emotional and irrational, “imperfect” males as the philosopher Aristotle put it, requiring male supervision and “care.” More affluent, especially upper-class, men in Athens particularly promoted this, as they sought for their women to appear “respectable,” as opposed to women of the lower classes and foreign women; the latter groups engaged in physical labor, whereas respectable women did not, or if they did, it consisted stereotypically of “weaving” for the needs of the family. In fact, upper-class women did not have to work because they had servants and slaves to do it for them. Seclusion of Athenian women, especially those who did not need to work, meant that, except at religious festivals, they could not appear in public without their faces covered nor supposedly without a chaperone of some sort, not even to go marketing; as it had been when they were growing up, their contact with people (especially men) outside the family was thus still supposed to be limited. Yet an abundance of evidence (including, for example, legal documents and speeches from the courts in the fourth century BCE) indicates that even “respectable” women testified on domestic matters (such as paternity) and attended all sorts of other more or less public events on a regular basis, such as official ceremonies of the state, weddings, funerals, and so on, went out for walks, and spent much time going to and fro visiting relatives and friends. Women regularly attended the theater at Athens, as Plato’s complaints against this reveal. Even from the back seats of the audience, where many of them likely sat, they could be offended by the mad or dissolute female characters presented on the stage by Euripides (or so the comedian Aristophanes alleged). A famous story circulated about pregnant women in the audience having miscarried from being scared to death by the Furies in one of Aeschylus’ tragedies!

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In their roles as wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, even Athenian women managed property, finances, and businesses, made and witnessed wills, and carried out quite independent transactions that would have put them into much more direct contact with “strange” men than they were “supposed to” have. Women played their most critical role in ancient Greek families as wives and mothers. In Oeconomicus, Socrates (that is, Xenophon) advises Ischomachus to trust serious things to his wife and not to argue with her as one would with outsiders. Men praised women for being discreet, responsible wives and caring mothers, but so also did women themselves, as seen, for instance, in the epitaphs of the proud mothers Melinna and Nicarete of Athens. As sisters, too, Greek women made their mark within the family. The philosopher Plato had a close relationship with his sister, Potone, whose son, Speusippos, became Plato’s heir. Similarly, the closeness of the playwright Aeschylus and his sister Philopatho meant that she could pass on his talents to her children and grandchildren. Despite the division even within some houses between men’s quarters (androˉn) and women’s quarters (gynaikoˉnitis), available evidence proves the regularity of conversation between men and women within the home; the paintings on vases or reliefs on tombstones that often show wives and husbands discussing matters or bidding one another farewell further reveal this reality of their relationships, just as the dialogues of tragic and comic plays would make no sense —except as fantasies—if men and women did not speak openly with one another in the home. Thus, we can understand as reflecting a realistic experience the storyline of an anonymous Athenian New Comedy in which a young woman argues against her father who wants to shift her from the husband she loves to a richer man; in the play, not only does the woman argue that the decision to remarry (or not) is her right (especially after the initial marriage arranged by her father), but also that a woman should not prefer money to a good husband, thereby teaching her father a moral lesson that certainly would have resonated with the audience. The principal Athenian concern, then, seems not to have been that women remain physically secluded from others, but that they maintain a sort of aloof decorum to reduce the dangers of ridicule or of incurring a bad reputation for themselves and their relations; hence, Euripides’ mother, Cleito, fell victim to the unsparing wit of Aristophanes, who claimed she worked openly in the market as a seller of vegetables (likely a pure fabrication for laughs). According to the Hellenistic poet Theocritus, impressionable young girls were attended by servants or chaperones to keep them safe from immoderate characters, while the propriety of a grown woman outside her home was a matter of respect, not control. Just how much of an isolated or segregated life ancient Greek women had in places like Athens thus remains a matter of discussion and debate among scholars.

Family and Gender: Women

Moreover, a distinction must be made between Athens and elsewhere in the ancient Greek world; women at Athens may indeed have been more regimented in their life choices, but evidence from other communities reveals that women there could own land, make wills, and go outside without supervision. Women at Thurii in southern Italy, for example, were well educated and allowed to speak in the assembly of voters. The fact that a number of Greek women received a good education is further proven by the existence and success of female poets across the generations and around the Greek world; Sappho of Lesbos, Moschine of Samos and her daughter Hedyle, Moero of Byzantium, Corinna of Tanagra, and Anyte of Tegea are only a handful of examples. Letters from the Hellenistic Era (c. 323–30 BCE), preserved in the dry sands of Egypt, bear further witness to the literacy of Greek women across the social classes. Again, any restrictions on the movement of ancient Greek women applied primarily to those from families with the financial means to afford such limitations because a working-class woman in town or the countryside could not function that way. Ancient Greek inscriptions testify to the wide range of paid occupations engaged in by Athenian and other women. Many were farmers or artisans (like the woolworkers Lyde and Rhodia in Athens). Others worked in the marketplace as grocers (like Thraitta, Mania, and Glycanthis), honey-sellers (like Piloumene), incense-sellers (like Melitta), or sesame seed-sellers (like Onesime and Soteris). Some labored in the service sector as laundresses (like Smikythe, Myrrhine, and Leuke) or wet nurses (like Melitta, Theoxene, Lampris, and Philyra) or in the medical profession as midwives (like Phanostrate of Athens). Many were professional entertainers as flute girls (like Elpis), harpists (like Demetria in Athens or Polygnota of Thebes), or acrobats (like Sanno). Ancient Greek women typically could not vote or otherwise directly participate in politics (hence, the premise of Aristophanes’ famous comedy Lysistrata), but they did exert influence. The poet Telesilla of Argos, for example, was traditionally credited with rallying the women of her city in its defense against the Spartans in the early fifth century BCE; in her honor, the Argives inaugurated the annual Festival of Impudence, in which women wore men’s clothes and men dressed like women (even donning veils). Queens like Archidamia of Sparta and Olympias of Macedon made their mark on the course of their countries’ histories. Of course, the matrilineal features of the royal houses of Sparta also had their drawbacks, as reflected in the stories of Helen of Sparta, remembered today as Helen of Troy. In most Greek communities, women were held to higher purpose than men, especially in religious contexts. Hence, many served as priestesses to goddesses like Athena, Hera, and Artemis. Their “innate” spirituality brought them closer to the gods, which helps to explain the oracles in Greece, especially the Pythia at Delphi, and the maenad followers of Dionysus.

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The link between religiosity and womanhood also brought female devotees as participants in the games at some religious festivals. At the major Panhellenic venues, women who owned chariot teams could enter them into the competitions, as did Cyniska of Sparta (early fourth century BCE), Blistiche of Magnesia (midthird century BCE), and Aristoclea of Larisa (early second century BCE). At the Heraia festival at Olympia, unmarried girls honored the goddess by running the shorter stadion, and perhaps engaging in wrestling and chariot contests according to age-groups. Women frequently survived men, often as their principal beneficiaries, due to the almost-endemic warfare among Greek states across the generations; in Hellenistic Sparta, for example, most landed property came to be concentrated in the hands of a few women, quite a contrast to the male-dominated past. In fact, Sparta always presented an unusual case when it came to ideas about and roles of women. Spartan women owned land (daughters receiving a half share compared to their brothers) and disposed of property themselves; they married later than most Greek women (around ages eighteen to twenty), putting them on a more equal footing with their husbands, and could take on extra sexual partners through the Spartan custom of polyandry. Although it should not be overdrawn, Spartan women held greater status and power and Spartan males showed much greater respect for active women than in other Greek communities; they stressed the need for women to exercise like men, even in public, and to make their presence known more outside the home. Naturally, they had their reasons for this, very practical ones. Spartan women exercised in order to handle childbirth better and to bear stronger, healthier children; Spartan women appeared more in public in order to shame their men into behaving bravely, for instance, cheering winners and mocking losers during competitions among the young men in combat practice. In other words, Spartan women lived under a set of strong expectations, just like Athenian women did; they were just different expectations. The notion, a very modern one, that a woman could behave in any way she saw fit (provided it was not criminal behavior), that she could be truly her own person beholden to no one else’s politically correct standards, would have been unheard of in the world of the ancient Greeks; it would have constituted social suicide in any Greek community ( just as it would have for a man, indeed). Indeed, frequent widowhood, or even divorce, carried with it in most Greek communities the expectation that a woman would remarry, if she were still in her child-bearing years. Young widows and divorcees were seen as in danger from temptation, such as extramarital sex and its attendant risks of illegitimate pregnancy or the conniving efforts of Greek gigolos to plunder one’s assets and those of one’s children. Hence, the philosopher Aristotle arranged in his will even for his mistress to remarry in the event of his death! Older widows had more freedom of

Family and Gender: Women

action and, hopefully, the protection of their grown son or other male relative as legal guardian. Certain negative stereotypes about women persisted throughout Greek history. For instance, there was the widespread belief that women easily suffered from addiction to wine; likely the participation of women in Bacchanalian rituals in honor of the god Dionysus contributed to this. Greek medical writers insisted that young married women needed frequent sexual activity to maintain their health, but Greek society generally criticized women for their supposedly hard-to-control passions; those left unmarried might become dangerous temptresses and those beyond child-bearing tended to be inordinately sex-crazed! Such prejudiced views urged the taming, instructing, and continued supervision of women. The Middle Comedy playwright Eubulus of Athens compared legendary good women (like Penelope) and bad women (like Medea) against each other and came to the conclusion that there were more bad ones than good ones. This sort of misogyny stretched all the way back to the Archaic poet Hesiod, who feared and hated women as money-grubbing and dangerous, decrying them as Zeus’ greatest plague on mankind, the bringers of grief, distrust, strife, and death. He famously told the story of the first woman, Pandora, a beautiful, necessary evil that men could put their arms around, a pain to “men who eat barley,” a “steep trap” from which there is no escape. More than two hundred years later, Simonides of Ceos epitomized the misogyny of many Greek men in a famous fable. He claimed that women were not even human but rather created from elements or terrible animals: stupid women from earth; changeable women from seawater; dirty women with chaotic personalities from the long-bristled sow; unstoppably nosey or gossipy women from female dogs; lazy and sexually promiscuous women from donkeys; ugly, sickening, thieving women from ferrets; useless, primped up women with high and mighty attitudes from mares; and harmful women from monkeys. Simonides did identify some women as good, though, those who came from the honeybee; such women were attractive and reputable, good mothers, good wives, good managers of their households, and good workers. Positive attitudes toward women did persist as well. Texts from the Pythagorean tradition of philosophy, for example, openly asserted that women shared courage, intelligence, and justness with men. The Greek goddesses reflected the personalities and potentialities of real women. Ancient Greek inscriptions, literature, and artworks depict women of all classes as capable of intelligence, cleverness, moral character, and physical strength and express admiration for such women; indeed, female characters in plays by Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes frequently outshine the men in their excellence. The poet Anyte perhaps summed up the complex view of women in the ancient Greek world when she wrote of a woman named

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Antibia: she enjoyed many suitors because men valued at once her virginity, her beauty, and her cleverness. See also: Arts: History; Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Aristotle; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Landownership; Merchants and Markets; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Blended Families; Burial; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Divorce; Extended Family; Fathers; Friendship and Love; Grandparents; Homosexuality; Inheritance; Marriage; Men; Mothers; Mourning/Memorialization; Sexuality; Sons; Weddings; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Cosmetics; Footwear; Foreign Dress; Headgear; Jewelry; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Eleusinian Mysteries; Magic; Olympian Gods; Oracles; Priests and Priestesses; Science and Technology: Biology; Education; Inscriptions; Medicine; Primary Documents: Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE); Euripides on Women’s Tragedy of Surviving War (415 BCE); Theocritus Describes Women at a Festival (Early Third Century BCE) FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cameron, A., and A. Kuhrt, eds. 1983. Images of Women in Antiquity. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Connelly, J. 2007. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cox, C. A. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dean-Jones, L. 1993. Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dignas, B., and K. Trampedach, eds. 2008. Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Officials from Homer to Heliodorus. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies. Dillon, M. 2001. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London and New York: Routledge. Fantham, E., et al. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth.

Family and Gender: Women Harrison, A. R. W. 1968. The Law of Athens. Vol. 1: The Family and Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huebner, S. R., and D. M. Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphreys, S. C. 1993. The Family, Women and Death. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Kraemer, R. S. 1992. Her Share of the Blessings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lefkowitz, M., and M. Fant, eds. 2016. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. McGinn, T. A. J. 2008. Widows and Patriarchy: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schaps, D. M. 1979. Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Skinner, M. B. 1987. Rescuing Creusa. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press. Slater, P. E. 1968. The Glory of Hera. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Watson, P. A. 1995. Ancient Stepmothers: Myth, Misogyny and Reality. Leiden: Brill.

YOUTH. See CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

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INTRODUCTION A fascination with the body and its appearance characterized much of ancient Greek culture. From their earliest history, they surrounded themselves with displays of the human form in paintings, mosaics, and particularly with lifelike statues ever more precise in detail; they loved to observe the human body even in such inanimate objects. Greek sculptors possessed the skill not only to capture the anatomy of the nude male or female but also to render delicate folds of cloth out of marble. Greek artisans across the centuries produced some of the most intricate pieces of jewelry that archaeologists have ever seen, revealing their talents in working base and precious metals as well as gemstones of all sorts. Despite all the finery of which their artists and artisans were capable, though, the ancient Greeks actually dressed rather simply in general terms. They made use of ornaments, cosmetics, and special hairstyles, and even foreign costume, as enhancements to their rather basic items of clothing, often as markers of elite status. The Greeks also paid attention to the care of the body itself, making hygiene, bathing, and physical fitness regular routines of life as markers of civilization and as acts of purification when in the presence of the divine. Only a handful of religious and philosophical ascetics advocated neglect of the body in favor of the mind and spirit. For most ancient Greeks, though, human beings were the very image of the gods, especially in terms of their physical characteristics, and the gods themselves showed marked appreciation for beauty of body and stylish fashion.

BATHING/BATHS Since at least Homeric times, the ancient Greeks shared with the older cultures of the Ancient Near East the valued importance of bathing, as a method of cleansing 317

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and as a part of religious ritual. By the Classical Age, however, the Greeks had become the first people in the ancient Mediterranean world to engage in public bathing and to construct designated facilities for that purpose. What we imagine when we think of the bird baths that decorate our modern gardens would have served as washbasins (loute¯ria, sing. loute¯rion) for the Greeks, their version of the bathroom sink. Such basins, of varying sizes, were typical in the nicer homes as well as in the exercising facilities known as gymnasia or palaestrae by the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE); a section of these facilities might even be called the loutra after these devices for washing. Actual bathtubs, as we would visualize them, also existed, since at least the Bronze Age, as archaeological finds of terracotta bathtubs at sites from that era, both on the mainland and on various Aegean Islands, have revealed. The most common freestanding tub among the Greeks, the pyelos, or hip bath, made of terracotta or stone and typically about three feet long and one-and-a-half feet wide, was designed so the bather sat upright in it (some had low seats built-in), similar to today’s walk-in tubs or sitz baths, though the water only covered up the legs; other tubs, large enough to hold more than one person, might also be stone or terracotta and freestanding, but were sometimes hollowed right out of rock formations. In either case, the objective was to enclose the tubs in a designated bathing area, either part of a private home, an exercise facility, or, more commonly, as a bathing facility open to the public. Such bathhouses, known as balaneia in Greek (sing. balaneion), existed from at least the middle of the fifth century BCE. The prosperous city-state of Athens provides the earliest surviving example, the Dipylon Baths, supplied by a well from which water was collected, heated (which contrasted with the washing in cold water typical of exercise facilities), and transported by hand. The archaeological remains suggest the presence of a changing room and indicate drains for the runoff of used water. Portable braziers probably provided indoor heat for the bathers and portable hip baths would have stood around the edge of the bathing room. Athens eventually had at least four balaneia, inside the city itself (unlike the Dipylon Baths) and down in the port of Piraeus, such as the Baths of Serangos with its wash basins, plunge bath, and anointing room. Bathhouses varied in size, some accommodating as few as four bathers, others dozens of bathers. By the fourth century BCE, it had become common to have two bathing rooms, or tholoi (sing. tholos), in a bathhouse, and many gymnasia, like those at Delphi, Eretria, and Amphipolis, came to include their own circular bathing rooms with large basins and rows of tubs. Bathhouses and gymnasia, not surprisingly, came to contain similar facilities, but the latter were typically only open to men, while the former opened to men and women either at different times

Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths

of day, or on different days, or were designed to accommodate men and women separately, perhaps each in a tholos of their own. We believe that most Greeks, especially Greek females, bathed daily. Unlike the Romans, who developed a strong tradition of taking their baths more or less after the workday ended, Greeks seem to have preferred taking their baths after exercise and before meals. For those who could afford slaves, the latter might have the task of preparing the tub, applying various oils to their master or mistress after their bath, then scraping them clean with a tool similar to a dull razor to remove all dirt from the skin, rinsing them with water from a water jug, toweling them dry, and finally anointing them with oils, some of them fragrant. Well-to-do Greeks, like the Romans who learned from them, as well as Greeks who frequented public bathhouses, did have access to running water, brought in from rivers, streams, lakes, or cisterns by means of metal or terracotta piping. Indeed, we know that water might be made to issue forth in the form of a spray in some bath settings, just like a modern shower, from taps designed to resemble the heads and open mouths of animals. In the middle of the third century BCE, the Greeks of Sicily seem to have developed the earliest system for the central heating of water in a bathhouse, that is, hypocaust technology. At the city-states of Gela, Syracuse, Megara Hyblaea, and Morgantina, the remains of large, wood-burning furnace pits have been excavated, lined with tiles and connected to channels for the transferring of hot water and steam heat to various parts of the bathhouse. This allowed for more extensive and efficiently heated bath complexes, like the North Baths at Morgantina, for example. These contained eleven rooms, including three changing rooms (apodyte¯ria) and two bathing rooms (one a tholos, the other rectangular with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and a hot-water immersion pool for communal use), each accommodating about sixteen tubs. The heating system consisted of a very complex arrangement of boilers and hollow terracotta tubes, located even in the ceilings; water piped into such a building passed through the furnace system to be warmed up to a comfortable temperature and then discharged into the bathtubs or washbasins; the bathing rooms themselves could also thus be heated. Finally, the floors of bathhouses in Sicily were paved quite watertight using a mix of pulverized tiles and mortar. The Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) saw Greek city-states in southern Italy and across the Mediterranean pick up on these technical innovations and expand upon them; Greek Egypt provides a lot of evidence for this, as does the Sanctuary of Asclepius at Gortys in the Peloponnesus, the second century BCE baths at Olympia, and those at Pella in Macedon. Immersion tubs for individual use (Greeks seem to have preferred not to share baths) became more popular in such places and greater circulation from hypocaust systems heated rooms enough to produce the sweating

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so desired by exercisers in cleansing of their pores (though portable braziers continued to be used in some sweat rooms). A dry-heat room, the pyriate¯rion, also appeared at this time and many bathing facilities were furnished with a cold tub, the loutron, or even a small swimming pool (or larger ones, as at Delphi and Nemea), if such could be accommodated. Unlike Roman bathers, Greeks apparently followed no set ritual or sequential order in their use of the different bathing rooms except that, once warmed up and sweated, a Greek bather would typically proceed to the elaiothesion, the oiling room, to be rubbed with oil and scraped down. Until Hellenistic times, there were still relatively few balaneia across the Greek world, but in that era the ethos of bathing among the Greeks changed quite a bit, especially in terms of its recreational and socializing focus, and not only did bathhouses become more and more common but also more and more centrally located and prominent within the Greek communities. Just like the Romans, Greeks came to enjoy and take pride in lavishing cleverness and artistry on their bathing establishments. As a result, these varied quite a bit in décor, depending on the financial and artistic resources behind them. Some, like the fourth-century BCE Baths of Diochares at Athens had expensive floor decorations, while others, like the North Baths at Morgantina, were ornamented richly in painting, moldings, friezes, and mosaics. In the Aegean context, then, bathing and baths evidently go as far back as the Minoan palace complexes with their fountains and basins, both freestanding and sunken. The greatest Greek poet, Homer, in his story of Odysseus’ adventures, sung about how Circe, Calypso, and the Phaeacians all bathed the hero in hot tubs of boiled water and anointed him with oil; his wife Penelope received such treatment from her maidservants (to help her relax and prepare for making offerings to the gods) and their son Telemachus (after his long journey) from Nestor’s youngest daughter. Some perhaps disapproved of the bathhouses, as indicated by the comedies of Aristophanes, in which more conservative characters criticize warm baths as decadent and effeminate in comparison to the cold bath-taking of old or associate bathing with gorging oneself on food and guzzling wine. Even though the playwright also “accused” philosophers of never going to the baths, the philosopher Plato, in fact, recommended that the old, ill, and physically worn-down should partake of warm baths to ease their troubles. A century or two later and wealthier Greeks were installing bathing facilities in the privacy of their own homes. Bathing and baths were not always the healthiest features of the Greek communities (as conditions there could actually engender germ organisms), but over time they clearly became an acknowledged feature of civilized life among the Greeks. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Fashion and Appearance: Hygiene; Housing and Community: Housing Architecture;

Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes Toward

Infrastructure; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Leisure Activities; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering FURTHER READING Fagan, G. G. 1999. Bathing in Public in the Roman World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lucore, S., and M. Trümper, eds. 2013. Greek Baths and Bathing Culture. Walpole, MA: Peeters. Yegül, F. 1992. Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

BODY, ATTITUDES TOWARD The ancient Greeks believed that the body (soˉma) brought all the best things of life, like competition through fighting and sports, or pleasure through eating and sex. There was no such thing as “real life” without the body. Fundamental to Greek attitudes toward the body was their cultural perspective on beauty (kallos). Greek mothers and wet nurses attempted to mold the “soft and warm” bodies of infants into an ideal form through various swaddling techniques and massage therapies; older children, especially males, trained through exercise and military preparation in an effort to achieve their physical peak as defined by Greek culture. As displayed in Greek art and described in Greek literature, the beautiful male body was physically fit, either naturally or as a result of a regimen of diet and exercise prescribed by physicians or athletic trainers. The handsome adult male had facial hair in the form of beard and moustache; only with Alexander the Great did a new trend of men shaving the face catch on, and that perhaps because Alexander and his imitators wished to appear eternally young, like the god Apollo. From Classical times (490–323 BCE) onward, the Greeks further believed that the beautiful male body ought to be displayed; they regarded foreigners, such as the Lydians and the Persians, as weird for being ashamed of male nakedness. Instead, as their art and very public athletic customs make abundantly clear, the Greeks gloried in the nude male form. By contrast, Greeks for generations considered it shameful for females to appear uncovered except in private contexts, even in the case of prostitutes. Greek artists, however, experimented with the seminude female form (goddesses and heroines) in Classical times until the fourth-century BCE Athenian sculptor Praxitiles

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unveiled his Cnidian Aphrodite, the first fully nude female image in the Greek world. Even this, though, displayed the seeking after modesty regarded as appropriate for women in relation to their bodies. The beautiful female body came to be conceived as having long, dark hair and dark eyes, and as being either slim or full-figured, the former associated with the litheness of goddesses like Athena and Artemis (and apparently preferred by the Spartans), the latter associated with the robust health of goddesses like Aphrodite and with the impression of fertility. The “care” of the body among the ancient Greeks, not just in terms of health but in terms of appearance, reflected their philosophical tenets; the Roman motto “a healthy mind in a healthy body” derived from this Greek perspective. Ideal images of male or female beauty in art consistently demonstrated mathematical proportionality and conveyed an impression of self-control together with a balance of relaxation and readiness, In contrast, Greek comedies ridiculed those characters regarded as ugly when nude because of “misplaced” fat, misshapenness, and so on. To take such notions even further, most Greeks seem to have believed that a beautiful body must possess a beautiful soul (psyche¯). Heroic virtues thus came with a heroic body, for instance. Hence the description of the unheroic Thersites in Homer’s Iliad, the polar opposite of figures like Achilles and Odysseus, not only “ugly” in his appearance (bow-legged, bald, lame, and hunched over) but also “ugly” in his behavior (provocative, nagging, complaining, and obscene). The Greeks thus adhered to physiognomy, which taught that the form and features of the body revealed an individual’s character; Plutarch’s biographical studies of famous Greeks and Romans demonstrate this mindset most clearly perhaps. The Greeks also recognized that their perception of bodily perfection could be manipulated by means of makeup, clothing, and so on. The beautiful body and face of the legendary first woman, Pandora, as Hesiod described her dressed up and ornamented by the gods, concealed her truly destructive nature, for example. So, not surprisingly, the Greeks came to praise simple beauty above anything contrived, quite different than modern times. From the perspective of physiognomy, some Greeks judged the physical features of people from other cultures as “barbaric.” They commented on the pale skin and “red” hair of the Scythians on the northern steppes and the “burnt” black skin and snub noses of the Ethiopians and other people of far southern regions. To Greeks, in general, these were not the most attractive physical attributes. The best-looking noses, hair, and skin color were, of course, those of the Greeks themselves, which they identified as a “happy medium” among the “extremes” of foreign populations. Together with their cultural perspective on the beautiful body came their perspective on the aging body. Beauty contests among young males enjoyed great popularity in Hellenistic times and probably much earlier; the elderly were always

Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes Toward

harshly confronted by that particular Greek cultural obsession with youthfulness. Indeed, if we consider Greek sports, gods, art, and sexuality, just as key examples, they all reveal this obsession with looking (and being) young. In Greek society, old age was very much associated with the way you looked: Was your body still fit or were there signs of infirmity? Was your face wrinkled? Was your hair gray? Were you sagging in many places? (This particularly formed the basis of many common jokes about older women.) Did you still have hair on your head at all? (This particularly formed the basis of very common jokes about older men.) When the Greeks referred to King Philip V of Macedon as their “darling,” for instance, they did so primarily because of his youthful appearance; he was only seventeen when he ascended the throne, and his predecessors had all been much older when they reigned. Philip’s coinage played up the image of youthfulness, as it sported a portrait of the young king with vigorous features, alert gaze, and a rugged, but obviously new, beard. Contrast this with the scene in the Odyssey where the insolent suitors mistreated the hero because he appeared to be a ragged old man and, thus, undeserving of their respect. Antidotes to physical aging among the Greeks included dietary adjustments, exercise, and especially cosmetics. Yet when older women and especially older men made deliberate attempts to stay young looking, they often faced social condemnation as dishonest, somehow immoral characters. Ancient Greeks were, of course, also familiar with the challenges presented by physical disabilities (adynamia) from birth (the result of congenital defects); Aristotle and other Greek medical writers recorded the occurrence of double organs and other redundant body parts, disproportional or deficient body parts, closed orifices, deafness (koˉphote¯s), blindness (typhlote¯s), lameness (choˉlote¯s), and so on. Postnatal disabilities caused by the extreme hard work in which most Greeks engaged would have deformed backs and spines, damaged legs and knees, and so on, complicated further by episodes of chronic malnutrition, disease, or other environmental stress factors; one need only call to mind here the Hellenistic sculptures of the elderly, stooped over from age and overwork, barely able to carry their little lambs to market or their buckets of water home from the local fountain. Warfare, too, when survived, would have often brought all sorts of physical damage to the body, especially to those fighting men who lost extremities or suffered injuries to the head; most students of Greek history are familiar with the stories of Philip II of Macedon and Antigonus I Monophthalmos, who each lost an eye in battle. In general, Greeks seem to have believed, as their poet Hesiod expressed it, that physical handicaps of the body fundamentally resulted from the anger of the gods as a punishment for those who had broken solemn oaths or in other ways had seriously disobeyed the socioreligious norms. True, they included among their gods Hephaestus, the lame artisan. Yet, just as the Olympians treated Hephaestus

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with open and unabashed disdain, considering him not as fit as the rest of them (no matter his genius), so did Greek people shun those among them whose bodies were physically “deformed.” The monster Polyphemus (whose name means “talked about by many”) represented in storybook form the link Greeks made between physical deformity (being born one-eyed) and viciousness of character. Communities acknowledged the importance of human physical “perfection” in the eyes of the gods by not permitting “blemished” people to serve as priestesses or priests. Few children in the Greek world likely would have survived infancy with any recognizable physical defects because most communities permitted the abandonment of children whose bodies did not meet accepted societal standards; the Spartans evolved the most ruthless customs in this regard, with government inspectors intruding in the private sphere of the family to “weed out” those babies not measuring up to the community’s standards of physical perfection. Aristotle and other philosophers of his ilk encouraged the Greeks to adopt this sort of method as a general practice, suggesting perhaps that abandonment of physically disabled children may not have been that pervasive in his time. Indeed, if the Greeks, even the Spartans, had actually stuck to such a regime of physical perfection, then the Spartan king Agesilaus (who was born lame in one leg) and the Athenian statesman Demosthenes (who was born with some sort of speech impediment that caused him to stutter) would never have lived to achieve their renown. Furthermore, Hellenistic Greeks (and Romans later on) seem to have developed an odd fascination for persons born with certain types of physical disability, such as dwarves (nanoi), hunchbacks (kyrtoˉnes), and hermaphrodites (androgynoi). The art market began to sell more frequently images of such people, and they appeared often in forms of low and private entertainment. Some communities did institute a form of welfare for those citizens who had a verifiable physical disability and were consequently deemed powerless in body. At Athens, for example, such adynatoi, provided they did not own more than three minas in property, received one or two obols a day as an allowance from the state. Their philosophers may have been split on the relationship between the soul and the body, with many of them deriding the latter, but no other culture celebrated the human form as much as the ancient Greeks did. Greeks certainly saw themselves as moving through space in the very image of the gods and goddesses. See also: Arts: Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Grandparents; Homosexuality; Men; Sexuality; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths;

Fashion and Appearance: Clothing, Classical Age, Females

Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Cosmetics; Hairstyles; Headgear; Hygiene; Jewelry; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Health and Illness; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods FURTHER READING Bertman, S., ed. 1976. The Conflict of Generations in Ancient Greece and Rome. Amsterdam: B. R. Gruner. Brown, P. 1988. The Body and Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Cartledge, P. 1993. The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dunbabin, T. J. 1957. The Greeks and their Eastern Neighbours. London: Center for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Evans, E.  C. 1969. Physiognomics in the Ancient World. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Falkner, T. M., and J. De Luce, eds. 1989. Old Age in Greek and Latin Literature. Albany: SUNY Press. Garland, R. S. J. 1995. The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the GrecoRoman World. London: Bristol Classical Press. Hall, E. 1989. Inventing the Barbarian. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hartog, F. 1988. The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hill, J.  M. 1997. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, P., and P. Thane, eds. 1988. Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity. London and New York: Routledge. Kleijwegt, M. 1991. Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Montserrat, D., ed. 1997. Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings: Studies on the Human Body in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Richardson, B. E. 1933. Old Age among the Ancient Greeks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rolle, R. 1989. The World of the Scythians. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Snowden, F. M. 1970. Blacks in Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Snowden, F. M. 1983. Before Color Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stewart, A. 1996. Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turner, B. S. 1996. The Body and Society. London: SAGE.

CLOTHING, CLASSICAL AGE, FEMALES Clothing for Greek women in the Classical Age (490–323 BCE) adopted and adapted from the fashions of the preceding Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) and

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set the basic standards for women’s dress in the subsequent Hellenistic Era (323– 30 BCE). Greek women in these times were concerned to cover their bodies sufficiently to preserve modesty, a crucial value in their traditional society, but at the same time not to constrict themselves with garments that would become burdensome in the Mediterranean environment. Like the men of Greece, the women of the Classical Age and later dressed principally in the chiton, a kind of long tunic made of linen or lightweight wool, part of the category of clothing known as endymata in ancient times. We might translate this rather literally as “inner garments,” by which the Greeks meant those worn close, or relatively close, to the skin. The women of southern Greece wore a chiton pretty similar to the exoˉmis used by working men, that is, fairly open on both the left and right sides; women attached the front and back pieces of their chitons at the shoulders by means of broaches or clasps and they hitched up their chitons above the waist, revealing less of their legs below the knee than the men’s exoˉmis did. Also unlike a workingman’s exoˉmis, the southern or Doric chiton did not allow any of the chest or back to be directly exposed; it did, however, allow glimpses of the woman’s body along the sides. Although the Greeks had taboos about women showing too much skin, these taboos were obviously complicated. This fashion of chiton might also be found among women outside of southern Greece, but usually only among those not yet married; in other words, there was a sense of youthfulness associated with the southern or Doric chiton that, elsewhere in the Greek world, was thought to suit only young girls without the responsibilities of husband and family, girls who did not live under the same rules of propriety as Greek matrons did. Across most of the Greek world, then, most adult women (since most adult women were expected to be married) dressed in the more conservative, full-length chiton. Like its counterpart among men, this chiton was either sown closed along one side (except for an opening for one’s arm to pass through) and tied off on the other side by strings, buttons, or pins along the shoulder and arm and below the waist, or sown closed on both sides below the waist, the remainder above tied off or clasped on both shoulders and along the arms. The women’s full-length chiton thus had large, long sleeves (created by pinning) and usually reached down to the ankles. It also typically consisted of so much excess material that it could be arranged in various pleated styles. Indeed, when a Greek matron wore such an Ionic-style chiton, her lower half resembled the fluted columns of Ionic-style temples. Despite such conservatism in dress, undergarments do not seem to have been a must for women in ancient Greek society, as they are in many modern cultures. The girdle, belt, or rope (known as zoˉne¯ or zoˉnule¯) used to tie a chiton at the waist, for example, might simply double as a breastband, if hitched up far enough (as

Fashion and Appearance: Clothing, Classical Age, Females

was the style in Late Classical and Hellenistic times); this was true also of the strophion, a sort of rope made of twisted strips of material that cinched up the chiton and pushed up the breasts, providing them with support. Greek women were also familiar with a kind of bra, called apodesmos, consisting of a linen or woolen strap worn as a true undergarment to flatten the breasts; in southern Greece, they also made use of the sthe¯thodesmos, which resembles very closely the modern-day sports bra in design. Finally, women had the option of wearing the perizoˉma or diazoˉma, basically a loincloth. Instead of the chiton, and sometimes in addition to it, Greek women also wore the peplos, which modern students of ancient history will primarily associate with the goddess Athena. This consisted of a long, rectangular piece of cloth, folded down over the torso and over the back and tied up at a woman’s shoulders by pins or brooches; the peplos might also be cinched at the waist to create a more billowy effect above the waistline, and the folded back panel could be pulled up over a woman’s head like a hood. Less elegant in appearance than the chiton, the sleeveless peplos, in fact, made a woman look like she was wearing a blanket. Nonetheless, it remained traditional in Greek culture, popular among women of the Archaic Period in a heavier woolen fabric and among women of Classical and Hellenistic times in a lighter version. Marble statuette of a young woman wearing a sheer Some Greek women wore a chiton, first century BCE. This elegantly seductive double chiton, about 50 percent portrait, probably of a high-status courtesan, or hetaera, reveals many features of women’s fashions longer than the standard one; in the Greek world, including the layering of the extra material of the garment clothing in various thicknesses, the use of earrings, (called diplois or diploidion) was hair ribbons, breast belts, and platform sandals. folded over on the chest and the The rolling of her hair in front over a hair band and tying back into a bun reflects a fashion trend of the back, down from the neck (similar Hellenistic period. (J. Paul Getty Museum/Gift of to the peplos), to create a sort of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman)

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double-draping effect. In one style of wearing this garment, a woman would wrap the chiton around her, clasping the garment together at both shoulders, but leaving a slit from shoulder down to feet all along one side. Thus, this double chiton, even though it covered the woman’s front and back down to the ankles, could be very revealing along that side. Another form of the double chiton was sown closed from the waist downward; this meant that the woman slipped it on like a modern skirt, gathering up the front and back panels and attaching them at the shoulders. In this case, only the sides of her torso might be visible from the openings in the garment. Again, these sorts of long chiton, open and half-open, seem to have suited the tastes of, and the expectations for, young Greek women. Modesty, and maturity, demanded either the simple, full-length chiton or the closed, full-length double chiton. The latter was even longer than other double chitons (reaching down to cover the feet almost entirely) and sown closed on all sides, except for openings for neck and arms; in other words, it most closely resembled the modern evening gown (except that it had billowy sleeves and was not exactly formfitting). Some Greek women turned the special properties of the double chiton into more complex fashion styles. For instance, they might wear the simple full-length chiton with a diploidion as a separate article of clothing, like a cape or shawl. This, then, could give off an effect similar to the double chiton, but with greater variety of possible arrangements. Such an extra garment would have fallen into the category of epible¯mata or perible¯mata, what we might translate as “outer coverings” that did not directly touch the skin. The most common of these was the himation, an oblong piece of cloth that was first wrapped around the body under the arms; a portion of the garment remained and was typically wrapped around one arm, fastened at the shoulder. A himation might stretch from the neck down to the ankles or it might only reach down to just below the waist. Whereas Greek women of the Classical Age were more conservative, adopting a plainer look, women of Archaic and Hellenistic times enjoyed more decorative clothing, in terms of intricately embroidered or woven patterns and designs, as well as more sheer and revealing clothing (especially in the Hellenistic Era). Yet the bright colors of their clothes, reds, yellows, greens, as well as the earthen tones, across all these periods, reveals that the Greeks were not conservative in the sense many moderns might expect. Conservatism typified the basic form of clothing for Greek women, but did not prevent them from vibrant expression and flamboyant variation. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/ Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Men; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing,

Fashion and Appearance: Clothing, Classical Age, Males

Classical Age, Males; Footwear; Foreign Dress; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups; Primary Documents: Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE) FURTHER READING Cleland, L., G. Davies, and L. Llewellyn-Jones. 2007. A–Z of Greek and Roman Dress. London and New York: Routledge. Cleland, L., M. Harlow, and L. Llewellyn-Jones, eds. 2005. The Clothed Body in the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Llewellyn-Jones, L., ed. 2002. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Symons, D. J. 1987. Costume of Ancient Greece. New York: Chelsea House.

CLOTHING, CLASSICAL AGE, MALES From the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) through the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), Greek men tended to dress in the same sort of clothing, with variations of style according to the trends of the period and according to status. Taking the Classical Age (490–323 BCE) as a main vantage point, one can see that men sought primarily comfort, durability, and maneuverability in what they wore, though some, of course, sought to flaunt their wealth by showing off in fancier clothes. Most Greek clothing fell under the category of endymata, what we might translate as “inner garments,” that is, those worn close, or relatively close, to the skin. The most common of these endymata worn by men was the woolen chiton, a sort of long tunic. Some chitons were sown closed along one side, except for an opening for the man’s arm to pass through, and tied off on the other side by strings or pins at the shoulder and below the waist. A Greek man would have slipped into this sleeveless chiton from the open side and pulled it closed from front and back. Other chitons, especially those linen ones fashionable among Athenian citizens, seem to have been sown closed on both sides below the waist (and slightly above it), the remainder above tied off on both shoulders. An Athenian probably slipped on this sort of chiton the way someone today would put on a skirt. In fact, the part of the chiton below the waist, wrapped by a cord around the waist, would have indeed resembled a skirt more than anything in our contemporary clothing. The part of this chiton above the waist would resemble a loose-fitting modern blouse and had billowy sleeves down to the middle of the upper arm. The length of the men’s chiton varied across the Greek territories and, at times, according to age and status. Men living in southern Greece wore a short chiton that

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came down just above the knee, while the men of central Greece and Asia Minor (western Turkey) wore their chiton longer, reaching down to the calf. The fashion of southern Greece permeated other regions over time, so that even Athenian men dressed in short chitons like their Spartan rivals. Still, if he wished to appear more distinguished and to assert his seniority in age over others, a man would wear his chiton long, almost down to the ankles. Since this latter was the fashion the great poet Homer described for the older heroes from the Greek epic tales, it should not surprise us that men in certain positions, like priests, dressed in the long chiton as a sign of their importance in society. What might be more surprising is that musicians and charioteers also wore the long chiton as symbolic of their professions, but again this might have to do with the antiquity of such professions and the long-standing connection of their talents with religious and ceremonial events in Greek culture. Loose-fitting, the chiton would have kept its wearer fairly cool in the hot season of the year; made of thin wool, the chiton would have also provided a level of protection against the cold in other seasons. Further warmth could come from adding sleeves to the chiton, wrist-length or elbow-length. The former seems to have been common in the Greek communities of Asia Minor and the far north of mainland Greece. Craftsmen, fishermen, sailors, and slaves wore a chiton much more open on the right side, in fact, without any fastening at the right shoulder. Instead, this garment, called an exoˉmis, seems to have slung over the left shoulder, leaving the man’s right chest and right back exposed, and thus giving him much more mobility on that side to do his work. Under the chiton, if Greek men wore any underwear (  perizoˉma) at all (and it seems likely that many did not), it could be of various types. Most were loincloths, while others appear to have resembled small kilts. In any case, Greek concepts of masculinity did not put a high value on the protection of their private parts but rather on the toughness of not pampering them. In cooler weather and on more formal occasions, Greek men would make use of extra layers of clothing, in the category of perible¯mata, what we might translate as “outer coverings” that did not directly touch the skin. The most common of these was the himation, an oblong piece of woolen cloth, most of which was wrapped around the body under the arms, with the remaining portion draped above the arms, the end of the cloth thrown over the left shoulder. The men’s himation would typically reach down to the ankles; in the Archaic Period, the larger the himation and the more involved its wrapping, the wealthier a man was seen to be. A shorter type of perible¯mata was the chlamys, which came from northernmost Greece and gained in popularity in the Hellenistic Era. Worn in the fashion

Fashion and Appearance: Cosmetics

of a slanted poncho, it covered the left shoulder, hanging down in front and back, and could be clasped at the right shoulder or below the throat; the chlamys thus left a man’s right arm free to maneuver. Although it could be used by anyone, the chlamys came to characterize the dress of men out hunting or on long journeys or military campaigns; hence, Roman soldiers, generals, and emperors adopted this piece of Greek clothing most readily and often had themselves depicted thus attired. In Athens, the chlamys symbolized a young man’s entry into the ephebate, the corps of the city’s youngest fighting men in their late teens/early twenties, and thus carried with it a great sense of honor and recognition. There were those men who chose unusually bright colors (like golden yellow) for their clothes and had their cloaks or capes covered in complex decoration, but most seem to have stuck to shades of white, earth tones, blues, greens, reds, and kept any designs to the edges of their clothes. Together with its other features, then, the dress of Greek men, even more than that of Greek women, remained rather conservative from Archaic through Hellenistic times. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/ Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Men; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Footwear; Foreign Dress; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Primary Documents: Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE) FURTHER READING Cleland, L., G. Davies, and L. Llewellyn-Jones. 2007. A–Z of Greek and Roman Dress. London and New York: Routledge. Cleland, L., M. Harlow, and L. Llewellyn-Jones, eds. 2005. The Clothed Body in the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Llewellyn-Jones, L., ed. 2002. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Symons, D. J. 1987. Costume of Ancient Greece. New York: Chelsea House.

COSMETICS The use of cosmetics (from the Greek kosme¯tike¯, translatable as “the art of adorning one’s appearance”) dates far back into ancient Greek history, as clearly evidenced by Bronze Age frescoes; the Mycenaean culture of that era (c. 1700– c. 1100 BCE) likely learned cosmetic ingredients and techniques from their Egyptian and other trading partners of the Ancient Near East, not to mention their Minoan predecessors in the Aegean Basin. By the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), makeups,

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perfumes, ointments, powders, and cosmetic implements were in long-standing production all over the Greek territories (not to mention imported from abroad) and were important items in the shipping trade. Many Greek authors often praised a woman’s white skin, rosy cheeks, and blackened eyes. Such characteristics were not always natural, though, but rather often produced or enhanced through the use of cosmetics. From at least the sixth century BCE, Greek women used chalk or white lead as a foundation for whitening the skin; it was mixed with vinegar, heated, dried, and ground into a powder for application. An alternative whitening agent introduced in Hellenistic times had something called “crocodile dung” imported from Egypt as its base; some scholars believe this actually came from a lizard’s body, while others consider it to have been some sort of earth (perhaps from Ethiopia). The Greeks had already been utilizing particular earths from the islands of Lemnos and Samos in skin treatments (like diatomaceous earth is used today). To reduce the appearance of freckles, Greek women applied bryony root, snail ash, cucumber juice, or a mix of vinegar and cumin; for wrinkles, donkey’s milk; for boils, cyclamen root; to brighten the skin, various combinations of grains, honey, eggs, and flowers. Animal urine, the menses of women, and even amniotic fluid from pregnant mares were utilized as ingredients in external applications to improve condition of the skin. Rosy cheeks were achieved with various powders containing vegetal materials, like orchella weed, orchid, alkanet root, mulberries, and seaweed. Natural earths were also used, like red ochre, as well as lead oxide. Eyelashes and eyebrows received a black coating from mascara eyeliners consisting of soot (lampblack), saffron, or kohl (antimony sulphide). In addition to the skin and eyes, ancient Greeks also enhanced the appearance of their teeth and hair. They made a powder from ash or crushed animal horn to whiten their teeth. They lightened their hair with goat fat and ash from beechwood, or darkened it using a rinse prepared from wine-soaked leeches, among other things. To prevent dandruff, Greek pharmacologists recommended wiping the scalp clean with urine from a bull over the course of several days. The ancient Greeks appreciated smelling good as well as looking good. Some Greeks viewed perfumes (myra, euosmiai) as useless luxuries, and certain citystates actually banned their manufacture, sale, or use, or partially banned them. Other city-states became wealthy off perfume creation and trade, like Corinth, for instance, the main center for perfumes in the Greek territories. Greek perfumes had olive oil as their base; to this, various herbs and flowers were added to provide the different scents desired. Vegetal infusions (flower petals, oils, resins, powders) included, but were not limited to, balsam, benzoin, cardamom, castoreum, cinnamon, cloves, costus, curcuma, fenugreek, frankincense (which the Greeks called libanos), galbanum, henna, laudanum, laurel, lily, musk,

Fashion and Appearance: Cosmetics

myrrh, myrtle, narcissus, nard, nutmeg, oregano, palm tree resin, rose, sandalwood, sesame, styrax, terebinth, and violet. Iris and marjoram oils were especially popular as applications to the skin after exercise in the gymnasium, while Greek medical authors recommended regular rubdowns with sage or cumin oils to maintain a healthy body. The ancient Greeks also applied aromatic ointments to their bodies and scented powders to their skin and their clothing. Deodorizing powders (xe¯romyra, diapasmata) usually consisted of one of the fragrant substances listed above dried and crushed, and perhaps mixed with some natural earth or ash. Scented ointments (chrismata, myra) sometimes had olive oil as the base, sometimes various seed oils or animal fats. Again, the same sorts of natural substances infused into perfume oil were employed in making ointments. Ointments from rose oil and clove oil were especially popular at banquets where men reclined with their feet toward other diners; they scented their feet with such ointments to make them smell nice. The protection and enhancement of one’s appearance in ancient Greece involved all sorts of instruments familiar to the modern world, made of bronze or ivory, plain or engraved. These included razors, tweezers, toothcombs (with fine and coarse rows on opposite sides, just like in their modern counterparts), scissors, curling tongs, hairpins, nail files, ear picks (which became especially popular in the Roman era), scrapers (for removing excess dirt and oil from the skin after exercising), and, of course, Bronze standing mirror, mid-fifth century BCE. Many ancient Greek women made use of mirrors whose mirrors. handles or stands were fashioned in the shape of Bronze mirrors (katoptra), female statuettes resembling themselves, but they with one side polished to make it also typically had features derived from mythology, reflective, held by attached bone like the winged figures of Eros, god of desire, on this or ivory handles, date as far back example. The symbolism suggests that this mirror was likely given to its original owner as a wedding as Mycenaean times; the finest present. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Gift of the ones were imported from Egypt family of Thomas A. Spears, in his memory, 2011)

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in that period and much later as well. From the seventh century BCE, mirrors with reflective surface and handle all of one piece of bronze began to be manufactured and obviously were much sturdier and intended to last longer without need of repairs; for over two centuries, the most popular style seems to have been that with handles shaped like young female Caryatids appearing to stand and hold up the disk of the mirror. Handheld circular mirrors (enoptra) of bronze also were made; in the fourth and third centuries BCE, many of these had circular covers attached by hinges. Cosmetic instruments, such as mirror handles or covers, might be works of art in themselves. Some were exquisitely molded or engraved, elaborately ornamented, and even inlaid with precious metals, especially silver. Perfume dealers sold most of their wares in small terracotta bottles (aryballoi) modeled on their alabaster precursors from the Ancient Near East. Products of much higher quality (and expense) might come in elegantly worked gold, silver, agate, crystal, or ivory containers. Similarly, containers for powders and ointments varied in material as their contents varied in quality. Ancient Greek cosmetics contained many of the same basic ingredients as ancient Greek pharmaceuticals. Many of those ingredients were freely available in the wild or on farmland, or were grown in gardens; they might also be purchased quite cheaply at country fairs and downtown markets. Some, though, came into the Greek territories as expensive imports, gum resin aromatics like frankincense, for instance, from as far away as southern Arabia, Somalia, and even India. Ancient Greek authors, most of them male, did not approve of cosmetic use by men; they regarded this as effeminate and also as foreign practice. Even for Greek women, they thought the most respectable should not employ cosmetics. Hence the testimony of the Athenian husband Euphiletus in the fourth century BCE in his self-defense for murdering the adulterer Eratosthenes: it struck Euphiletus as oddly out of character that his wife put on makeup in the evening. Euphiletus doubtless would have agreed with the common prejudice among Greek men that only fake women who sought to lure lovers, such as courtesans and prostitutes, would apply makeup and shower themselves in perfume. Such women were kalon kakon, “a beautiful evil,” like the mythical Pandora or Helen of Troy. Yet the literary and particularly the archaeological evidence definitively attests to the widespread sale and usage of cosmetics and related products across the Greek world, much more widespread than could be accounted for solely by sale to and usage among women of “questionable” character. Scholars maintain that ancient Greek women across the socioeconomic scale, and men (despite the recorded prejudices) especially of the more affluent levels, made use of cosmetics for the same reasons as people do today: to appear pleasing to themselves and others, to boost their self-esteem, and so on.

Fashion and Appearance: Footwear

See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Merchants and Markets; Trade; Family and Gender: Adultery; Homosexuality; Sexuality; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Hairstyles; Hygiene; Food and Drink: Olives and Olive Oil; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Marketplaces; Science and Technology: Botany FURTHER READING Dayagi-Mendels, M. 1989. Perfumes and Cosmetics in the Ancient World. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum. Donato, G., and P. Bisogno, eds. 1984. Aphrodite’s Scents: Aromatic Journey through Experimental Archaeology. Rome: Edizioni Vision. Keene, L.  O. 1981. Caryatid Mirrors of Ancient Greece. Mainz am Rein: Philipp von Zabern. Lee, M.  M. 2015. Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Resinski, R. 1998. Cosmos and Cosmetics. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest LLC.

FOOTWEAR The ancient Greeks developed footwear (pedila) in a wide variety of styles and designs. Just as today, each type served particular purposes of functionality and provided a means of display for its wearer. People in the ancient Greek world tended much more than people in the modern Western world to go barefoot. For instance, they would rarely wear anything on their feet when at their home or when visiting the home of another; they especially kept their feet bare while dining, which would seem to most Americans today a rude behavior. When out and about, many Greeks continued to go barefoot, particularly those who lived and worked in the countryside. Famously, they exercised in bare feet and competed in athletic events, like the contests of the Olympics, unshod. In other words, they had much tougher and hardier feet than most people in say, the United States, today. Those who did choose to wear something on their feet, or needed to, had a variety of options. The simplest were the light-soled slippers called sandalia or blautai. Next, there were various types of sandals, which is derived from the ancient Greek word sandalon meaning simply “wooden sole.” Some types were identified by the number of the straps that held the sole to the foot, such as the heptusklos (seven-strapped) or the enneusklos (nine-strapped), others by the arrangement of those straps, like the hypode¯ma (fastened with straps around the heel) or the kre¯pis

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Terracotta perfume vase, or aryballos, formed in the shape of a right foot in a sandal, Rhodes, mid-sixth century BCE. This piece illustrates a fairly typical design for ancient Greek footwear, with the sole of the sandal attached to the foot by means of a single strap across the toes and more complex strapping up to and around the ankle. Ancient Greeks frequently anointed their feet with scented oils after bathing and before dining; hence, this playfullooking vase actually would have had a very practical purpose. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Fletcher Fund, 1924)

(gender-neutral sandals laced from toes to calf ). There were also sandals known for their color, like the men’s red sandals called amyklai. The Greeks wore shoes (hypode¯mata), more properly called, open-toed ( proschismata), close-toed (skepasmata), and even slit at the sides (perischides). The synchis or synchas was one of their everyday shoes, but there were dozens of other types distinguished by their color, design, use, or point of origin. For instance, Greek brides wore nymphides (wedding shoes), flute players on stage beat time with their wooden shoes, kroupezai, and gymnasiarchs sported their white phaikades. The Spartans had a shoe made of felt called the Lakonika embas; the styles known as Sikyoˉnia and Thessalides came from Sicyon and Thessaly, respectively, and were worn by women and men, respectively. Bathupelma, thick-soled shoes, were popular with those men and women who wished to appear taller in height. Lastly, the Greeks had boots (also generally called hypode¯mata) differentiated in name primarily by their size. The arbyle¯, for instance, was a thick-soled boot that covered the ankle. The kre¯pis was typically calf-length, opened down the front, and was tied closed with laces; the embas was worn the same way, but was

Fashion and Appearance: Footwear

thick-soled. The kothornos had an even thicker sole and reached up to the knee. Boots were also distinguished by their uses; pe¯lopatides, for example, were clodhoppers used by countryfolk. Slippers, sandals, shoes, and boots were the products of specialized artisans skilled in working with wood, wool, fur, or animal skin. Slippers were typically made of woolen felt, and shoes or boots sometimes included a layer of felt, or fur, for added warmth. The Greeks had socks (podeia, pellastai) for this purpose also, but they seem to have rarely worn them. Sandals, shoes, and boots were typically made of cow leather, but shoes also came in softer calfskin, goatskin, or sheepskin. The soles of footwear were either of leather or wood, more rarely of cork (  phellos), the latter for increased cushioning. To enhance its look, footwear was dyed different colors (yellow, red, green, or white) or blackened. Some artisans inscribed into or embroidered designs upon their products, or ornamented them with various metals, including gold. Leather shoes and especially boots were often polished to a high sheen before sale. Each piece of footwear was very individualized, tailor-made for the customer rather than mass-produced. Aristophanes and other writers of comedy in the ancient Greek world liked to satirize those artisans who worked in the footwear industry, such as tanners and cobblers. Yet the philosopher Socrates was very good friends with the shoemaker Simon, whose shop was near the agora of Athens. Tombstones from Athens reveal the pride of leatherworkers in their profession; an abundance of painted vases from the fifth century BCE alone have immortalized ancient Greek shoemakers by portraying them at work and interacting with their customers. Footwear mattered to the ancient Greeks for practical and fashionable reasons, and those who produced footwear for others received a considerable degree of attention from their society. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Carpentry; Cloth-Making; Trade; Travel; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Men; Weddings; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Foreign Dress; Jewelry; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Sacrifices FURTHER READING Cleland, L., G. Davies, and L. Llewellyn-Jones. 2007. A–Z of Greek and Roman Dress. London and New York: Routledge.

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The World of Ancient Greece Cleland, L., M. Harlow, and L. Llewellyn-Jones, eds. 2005. The Clothed Body in the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, M.  M., and E.  B. Abrahams. 1964. Ancient Greek Dress. Chicago: Argonaut Publishers. Houston, M. 1947. Ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine Costume. London: Courier. Lee, M. 2015. Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Llewellyn-Jones, L., ed. 2002. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2003. Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Symons, D. J. 1987. Costume of Ancient Greece. New York: Chelsea House.

FOREIGN DRESS The ancient Greeks went through several phases in terms of their interaction with and attitudes toward clothing from the non-Greek cultures all around them. Before and during the Archaic Period (that is, before 490 BCE), most Greeks could not have afforded to purchase clothing from abroad, but those who could would have been openly interested in the available styles. During the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), the traumas of the Persian Wars generated antagonism toward foreigners and brought on hostility toward anyone who adopted non-Greek fashions. In the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian Empire, however, the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) saw Greeks once again inspired by the surrounding cultures in matters of dress. When it came to footwear, Greeks noted the peculiar shoes worn by other cultures. Egyptian priests, for example, wore white shoes called by the Greeks phaikades, while Persian kings sported what the Greeks dubbed the mesopersikon. Gymnasiarchs in Athens seem to have either adopted the phaikades or developed a parallel version of their own, while Greek women came to enjoy Persian shoes, especially with their inner lifts that made them look taller. Like the Romans, the Greeks strongly regarded trousers as a “barbaric” form of dress, not fit for citizens of their culture. Thus, it would have been exceedingly rare to see a Greek of any status wearing pants even in the period after Alexander the Great. Yet they knew of the different sorts of trousers worn by foreign nations. The Sacae and Scythians of the Russian steppes wore the tight-fitting anaxurides; similarly, the Celtic populations of Central and Western Europe sported their tight-fitting brakai. The Persians wore close-fitting pants, too, but they also had baggy varieties, which

Fashion and Appearance: Foreign Dress

the Greeks called thulakoi or sarabara (the latter word probably taken from Persian). Among the Persians, only the Great King could wear trousers of scarlet hue. The Greeks shared with the other cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East the habit of wearing woolen tunics (chitoˉnes) as “inner garments” (endymata) on their upper bodies. Whereas Greek chitons were typically basic, even bland, in color, Scythian tunics (Istrianai) were known for their bright colors. Persian royal tunics were dyed a deep purple with some white elements. The Celts wore the tunic with sleeves (chitoˉn schistos), unlike the Greek fashion. Egyptian tunics (kalasirides) were long, made of linen (linon), and fringed at the bottom with tassels and other ornamentation. Less “reputable” Greek women became fond of the see-through flesh-colored tunics (sandukes) of the Lydians. Perhaps the Egyptian kalasiris could be better classed as “outer garments” (  perible¯mata) like the Greek himatia or zustides. In this category certainly would fall the Persian kapuris, a sleeved gown, the kupassis, a garment that reached down to the thigh, and the sarapis, a long white Persian robe striped with purple. Greek women of wealth invested in the Egyptian sort of many-threaded cloth, similar to damask ( polumita), or the Persian heavily embroidered cloth (kestos, poludaidala, poikilos) that went into making some of these perible¯mata; they imported it for its rich colors and complex designs, including floral and stellar patterns, rows of palm leaves, waves, or meanders. Gold thread was even sewn into dresses of this sort of cloth. Greek communities frequently offered luxurious clothing of this type to their gods and goddesses, who, no matter how Greek they might look, always had something exotic about them as supernatural beings, for which it seemed only fitting to dress their statues in foreign styles. Hence, the famous peplos of Athena, offered to her statue and draped about it in the Parthenon every year during the Panathenaic festival, was essentially a foreign gown, though made by young Greek seamstresses. To top off their outer garments for added warmth, men and women of other cultures wore various sorts of cloaks (chlainai), just as Greeks did. The Scythians sported their renowned black cloaks (melanchlainoi), while the Persian kings wore a cloak of scarlet, crimson, or deep purple known as the phoinikis. The Celts had their heavy cloak of coarse wool (sagos), similar in some ways to the Persian kaunake¯s or mandya. The Thracian zeira resembled the Greek military cloak (chlamys) but reached down to the wearer’s feet. Persians even had a long coat, apparently made of heavy wool or leather, called the kandys; variations of it became popular among Greek women and children, and the Athenians even dedicated several elaborately patterned kandueis to the goddess Artemis at Brauron. Foreign peoples in the northern reaches of the known world also kept themselves warm with clothing of fur (lachne¯), for which the Greeks regarded them as

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especially primitive. Thus, the Armenians wore garments of mouse fur (muoˉtos), while the Thracians had their fox-skin outfits (bassara). The latter were adopted by Greek devotees of the god Bacchus during their revels. The headgear worn by other cultures was distinctive in the Greek mind. The poets Sappho and Alcman spoke of Lydian headgear as particularly desirable. Various peoples in the Ancient Near East made use of turbans (mitrai), often of cloth embroidered in variegated colors. The Persians introduced to Alexander the Great and his successors the use of the diadem, a hair ribbon of blue silk (byssos) embroidered with pearls; Persian kings wore the diadem around their tiara (also perhaps called kidaris), the headdress of state. A Persian hood (probably the kurbasia) was often depicted in variations on Greek painted pottery scenes showing Persian troops fighting Greek hoplites. A survey of foreign dress would not be complete without consideration of how the Greeks began to import hair from other peoples to make their wigs and hairpieces. This custom seems to have been adopted from the Persians, whose men and women wore false hair ( prokomion). Among the popular fashions was the use of red hair (pyrros) from Scythia. Greek artists regularly depicted the tyrannical kings of olden times, like Creon from the story of Antigone, as dressed in foreign style, resembling especially Persian potentates. Naturally, this sort of artistic convention, representing certain Greek prejudices toward foreign ways, would attach a stigma to the wearing of foreign dress. Despite the resentment engendered by figures like Pausanias of Sparta, Alcibiades of Athens, and especially Alexander the Great when they began to sport foreign raiment (often simply referred to as stole¯), something about it still always fascinated Greeks. By Hellenistic times, it was clear that not all Greeks were averse to wearing foreign styles of dress when the mood grabbed them. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Cloth-Making; Trade; Travel; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Men; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Footwear; Headgear; Jewelry; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Gymnasia/ Palaestrae; Panathenaia; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship FURTHER READING Cleland, L., G. Davies, and L. Llewellyn-Jones. 2007. A–Z of Greek and Roman Dress. London and New York: Routledge.

Fashion and Appearance: Hairstyles Cleland, L., M. Harlow, and L. Llewellyn-Jones, eds. 2005. The Clothed Body in the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, M.  M., and E.  B. Abrahams. 1964. Ancient Greek Dress. Chicago: Argonaut Publishers. Houston, M. 1947. Ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine Costume. London: Courier. Lee, M. 2015. Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Llewellyn-Jones, L., ed. 2002. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2003. Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Miller, M. C. 2004. Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Symons, D. J. 1987. Costume of Ancient Greece. New York: Chelsea House.

HAIRSTYLES In the world of the ancient Greeks, hair held great pride of place when it came to one’s looks. The Greek poets and playwrights frequently referred to the long tresses of women and goddesses as sure signs of their alluring beauty. Similarly, Greek heroes were described as having full heads of luscious, curly hair, sure signs of their attractiveness as well as virility. Long hair seems to have been the most common fashion for men back in Mycenaean times (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE). Boys were some sort of exception; perhaps in imitation of Egyptian customs, young Greek boys in those days might have their heads shaved, leaving several thick locks of hair stretching out from different spots on the head. Even in this case, however, pictorial evidence shows that such locks were quite long, thus preserving the preference for longer hair. Of all Greek populations in the historic period, none perhaps more than the Spartans cared more for their hair. Custom demanded that Spartan boys have their hair always cut short, while Spartan girls could grow theirs long. Once they reached the age when they became members of the military training corps, however, adolescent males in Sparta were required to grow their hair out; they were never to cut it again. Hence, when the famous 300 Spartan soldiers fought to the death at Thermopylae against the Persians (480 BCE), the latter remarked with awe how their adversaries spent time combing and displaying their long hair, which reached down to their upper chests. In addition to the literary evidence on this matter, ancient artworks and artifacts depicting Spartan warriors frequently depict their hair as long and visible outside their helmets. Certainly, for Spartan males, long hair symbolized maturity, strength, and masculinity. On the other hand, Spartan women, when they engaged in sexual relations with their husbands (which apparently was not that

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often, since wives lived at home and husbands lived in the barracks with their comrades), were expected to cut their formerly long hair short, like a boy’s. There was some sort of interesting fetish about the length of hair going on in ancient Sparta. In ancient Athens, the customs for wearing one’s hair changed over time. In the period of the Persian Wars, and probably stretching back into prior generations, men wore their hair long, like the Spartans, except that they tied it in a knot, held by a clip or brooch, at the top of their heads; in this way, it must have resembled the topknot of samurai warriors in medieval and early modern Japan. Athenians came to associate long hair, however, with their so-called barbarian adversaries; perhaps as a result of this prejudice, long hair for adult males fell out of fashion in the period following the Athenian victory over Persia. Instead, they followed the custom of ceremonially cutting off the long hair of a young boy when he reached the age of maturity (that is, sixteen); this apatouria, as the Athenians called it, served as a rite of passage, and the assumption was that an Athenian man, from that point in his life onward, would continue to keep his hair relatively short. He might wear it wavy, curly, shaggy, or combed straight (and typically without parting it), but it would remain above the neck or only stretch down to the nape of the neck. From literary descriptions and especially artistic depictions, it appears that shorter hair was the standard across much of the Greek world, besides just Athens. It is also clear that, though many Marble head of a woman illustrating a complex Greek men wore their hair in a hairstyle, c. 320 BCE. In Late Classical and natural look, many others had Hellenistic times, and continuing into the Roman their hair “professionally” styled, Empire, women’s hairstyles, especially those of for instance, with ringlets around the elite, became more and more complicated, requiring professional assistance and much time to the forehead in imitation of the perfect. In this example, the woman’s hair has been god Apollo. elaborately curled in rows front-to-back to join an Greek women, in genequally elaborate design encircling the crown of her eral, grew their hair long. This head. (J. Paul Getty Museum)

Fashion and Appearance: Hairstyles

tradition again goes back to the Mycenaean culture of the Bronze Age and, again, girls in those times might have had their heads shaved like their male counterparts. In later periods, Greek women, especially of more affluent families, employed many different hairstyles. The most complex appear in the Archaic Period (c. 800– 490 BCE), elaborately coiffed patterns held together by cloth or leather ribbons or devices of metal, with plaited tresses and hair length down to the middle of the back. In Classical (490–323 BCE) and Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), most women seem to have preferred simpler arrangements of their hair. They continued to use ribbons, and now also semicircular metal frames (called stephanai, hence the origin of the Greek word for crown, stephanos) of various sizes and designs, to pull back the hair from their faces; they used curling irons to roll the hair around their face into a sort of braid, sometimes extending beyond the forehead like a visor; they combed the hair back and tied it up in buns or knots of various forms, at the top of the head or at the back, sometimes leaving hanging strands or curls. There is no evidence of pigtails among Greek hairstyles, but Greek women did tie off their hair in longer or shorter ponytails. In addition, if they wore any sort of headgear or jewelry in their hair, Greek women would alter its style accordingly. Even among the “equal” citizens of Athens, there were differences in hairstyle depending on one’s status. Male members of the Athenian aristocracy, for instance, like the Peloponnesian War hero Alcibiades, continued to grow their hair down to their shoulders, perhaps as a mark of their ancestral links with the heroes of old, even when other Athenian men no longer did so; in Alcibiades’ case, it might also have been for political reasons, since he favored the Spartan way and usually treated his fellow Athenians as no more than tools for his own aggrandizement. At the other end of the spectrum, male and female slaves, in Athens and elsewhere in many Greek communities, were expected to keep their hair closely cropped. If we consider that hair was a sign of power, independence, and virility among Greek men, and of beauty, godliness, and femininity among Greek women, then it makes sense why aristocrats at one end and slaves at the other followed such strictly segregated customs; slaves, especially male slaves, had literally been shorn of those qualities, which would otherwise have made them equal to their owners. Loss of their hair symbolized this for all to see, like a form of branding. Men and women of certain occupations also tended to represent themselves through hairstyle. Thus, men and women in service to others, nannies and chaperones, craftsmen and common laborers, usually wore their hair on the short side; the practicality of their lives, not to mention the absence of luxuries, encouraged this custom. On the other hand, men who pursued the “career” of philosopher were renowned in the Greek communities for their long hair. Some of them followed this custom out of traditional connections to the sages of the olden times; they

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attached to long hair the symbolism of age and wisdom, of having been around a long time and having seen many things. Other philosophers apparently chose the long-haired look simply because it stood against the norm in most Greek communities; they were taking a countercultural stand, especially those, like the Cynics, who completely rejected social convention and conformity. Hence, Greek philosophers created an intellectual and even moral status for themselves by adopting longer hair. Finally, generals and other leading figures in the wake of Alexander the Great attempted to duplicate his wild, curly hairstyle, to appropriate for themselves some of his celebrity image. The length of hair might also have something to do with particular rituals. For instance, Greek women in mourning typically had their hair cut in the same fashion as their slaves or servants; in this way, they revealed their personal sacrifice in honor of the deceased, purposely diminishing their beauty in proportion to their grief. The style of one’s hair, then, meant a great deal in the world of the ancient Greeks. Perhaps even more than in modern times, it communicated in a very quick way a wealth of information about a person’s gender, status, and profession. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Philosophy, Cynics; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Men; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Headgear; Jewelry FURTHER READING Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lee, M. 2015. Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Llewellyn-Jones, L., ed. 2002. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.

HEADGEAR Headgear in the world of the ancient Greeks fell into two broad categories. On the one hand, Greeks wore a variety of objects on their heads to enhance their appearance. On the other hand, they wore a variety of what modern people would refer to as hats to protect their heads. The latter form of head covering, the primary focus of this entry, was frequently associated with particular kinds of work or other activities outdoors.

Fashion and Appearance: Headgear

Both Greek men and women wore cloth ribbons or fillets (mitrai, parampukia, koruphistai) as well as cloth or leather head-bands (sphendanai, sphendonai) to hold or wrap their hair in various styles (for instance, knots or buns for either sex, ponytails for women); the most common fashion was either to draw the ribbon or band around the forehead or wear it higher up across the crown to slant down to the back of the neck. Sometimes, men would imitate the images of the god Apollo by tying off their fillets so that the tails hung down at the nape. Alexander the Great and his royal successors in the Hellenistic kingdoms adopted the diade¯ma from Persian royal custom. Worn round the head just above the brow, the diadem was a blue ribbon of silk with white spots on it or pearls embroidered into it. On special occasions, ancient Greek custom called for the decoration of the head by means of particular leaves and flowers formed into wreaths (stemmata, stephanoi). Men most often wore such “crowns,” especially at times of military or athletic victory, during the drinking parties known as symposia, as suppliants to the gods, or at religious festivals. In addition to ribbons and headbands, as well as jewelry, hairpins, brooches, and other decorative ornaments, Greek women used partial or full hairnets (skaphai), sometimes even woven in thread of gold, to hold or cover their hair. They frequently wore the kerchieflike sakkos on the back of the head, tied forward by straps or strings in elaborate designs. In Hellenistic times, when Greek men and women turned to dying their hair, they also increased their use of wigs (  pe¯nikai, entricha) and added hairpieces (komai prosthetoi) to enhance their looks. Such headgear had been in use at least as far back as the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE). When it came to protecting their heads, most common among men engaged in crafts (like metalworking or carpentry) and among shepherds, farmers, sailors, and merchants on the seas, were large, rounded skullcaps or taller conical caps. The former were made out of animal skin (especially cow or dog, hence the frequent appellation kune¯, “dog-skin cap”), while the latter were made out of felt (and thus commonly known as pilos in Greek times, pilleus in Roman times). These caps served to protect the wearer from singeing his hair (in the case of artisans who worked with braziers, forges, or kilns) or to keep his head safe from heat, cold, or dampness (in the case of those who worked outdoors). Both male and female travelers along the byways of the ancient Greek world would have been seen wearing the petasos. Sometimes held on by means of straps, this hat might be conical or more flattened in the middle but always disc-like in shape; it had a broad brim all around, which could be of varying size, providing more shade or less shade for the wearer. If the material used to make the petasos was woolen cloth, it had a very floppy appearance (this seems to have been

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preferred in the broadest-brimmed versions, which were also those favored by women on the road); if leather was used, the petasos looked more like a sombrero or flattened cowboy hat. The Greeks also apparently donned a sort of visor, known as a proskopion, likely made of leather. It would have served as a substitute for a hat under certain conditions. Greek men and women protected themselves from the elements by drawing parts of their long garments over their heads. Men, for instance, wore a variety of outermost garments (  perible¯mata) in the form of sleeveless cloaks (chlainai, pharoi, sisurai, tribe¯nes, chlamydes), resembling today’s ponchos. Most of these were large enough to be partially pulled over the head as a hood. Similarly, women drew the back panel of their long dress, the peplos, up and over their heads to serve as a hood. Greek women frequently wore veils as headgear, especially those who wanted to maintain their reputation for respectability, protecting themselves from the prying eyes of men out in public. They particularly veiled themselves on special occasions; so, brides wore a veil during their weddings and female mourners wore black veils at funerals. A woman’s veil might be as simple as a fold of her dress (himation or peplos) pulled up and over the head and around the face. Women also had actual veils (kaluptrai, kalupteirai) that, depending on their length, might cover face, head, neck, and shoulders; some special versions, like the kalumma, hid all the head and face, except the eyes, and fell to the shoulders, while others, like the kre¯demnon, resembled the Spanish mantilla in style. Greek men may also have veiled themselves during particular religious rituals or under circumstances where emotional reactions needed to be hidden as a matter of social convention. They would have used a fold of their clothing for this rather than a separate garment, however. Generally speaking, though, the Greeks associated veiling with women. One might also include here the ancient Greek use of parasols (known as ane¯telia, tholiai, skiadeia, terms also used for types of sun hats), collapsible like those in modern times. Athenian women acquired particular notoriety for carrying such items or for having servants covering their mistresses with them. For men to use such umbrellas was regarded as a sign of effeminacy. In the world of the ancient Greeks, then, men and women fashioned their hair in elaborate styles using certain types of headgear and shielded themselves from exposure to various weather conditions, especially excessive heat and sunshine, with other types of headgear. Headgear also varied between the sexes in terms of the frequency of its use and particularly in terms of the occasions on which it was deemed appropriate for men or women.

Fashion and Appearance: Hygiene

See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Carpentry; Cloth-Making; Masonry; Metal-Refining; Metalworking; Pottery-Making; Trade; Travel; Family and Gender: Burial; Childhood and Youth; Men; Weddings; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Foreign Dress; Hairstyles; Jewelry; Politics and Warfare: Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Libations and Offerings; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Cleland, L., G. Davies, and L. Llewellyn-Jones. 2007. A–Z of Greek and Roman Dress. London and New York: Routledge. Cleland, L., M. Harlow, and L. Llewellyn-Jones, eds. 2005. The Clothed Body in the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, M.  M., and E.  B. Abrahams. 1964. Ancient Greek Dress. Chicago: Argonaut Publishers. Houston, M. 1947. Ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine Costume. London: Courier. Lee, M. 2015. Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Llewellyn-Jones, L., ed. 2002. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2003. Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Symons, D. J. 1987. Costume of Ancient Greece. New York: Chelsea House.

HYGIENE In the world of the ancient Greeks, there was a saying for what one had done ever since childhood: ex hotou ego rhuptomai, literally, “ever since I began to wash myself.” Even this simple phrase reminds us that the Greeks took personal cleanliness seriously from early on in their lives. First and foremost in their efforts to maintain cleanliness was abundant supply and use of water. The Greeks planted their communities near sources of fresh water (rivers, streams, lakes, springs); not only that, they went to great lengths to collect and store water (such as from rain runoff ) whenever practicable. Still, they realized that such stored water, such as in cisterns, did not always remain as safe to drink

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as fresh water. So, they boiled such water or added strong wine to it as a form of sterilization to make it more fit to drink. Among the ancient Greeks, washing one’s face with water seems to have been a morning routine practiced daily. They typically made use of unheated water drawn from a courtyard cistern or the nearest well, often placed in a washbasin (loute¯rion). Oral hygiene was fairly minimal by modern standards. The ancient Greeks chewed, drank, or gargled with various herbs and spices as mouth rinses. In the absence of toothbrushes, they applied with their fingers to their teeth various substances derived from animals, plants, and minerals to clean them, strengthen them, and even polish them. Washing one’s hands in cold, warm, or hot water also seems to have been a very common routine, whether one had been working in the farm or shop, engaging in religious ritual, or eating at table. The Greeks also employed various natural substances as cleansing agents for their hands, known generally as rhummata. For instance, they harvested a sort of fuller’s earth or marl, the most famous known as Cimolia because it came from the Cycladic island of Cimolus. This white clay contained soda, which acted as a natural disinfectant; when mixed with olive oil, it produced a type of soap. They also made use of konia, an alkali powder popular among athletes in the gymnasia. In the absence of toilet paper, when the ancient Greeks relieved themselves, they typically washed themselves with cold water (fresh or stored, but usually the latter and often known to be non-potable) as well as rags or sponges; in the countryside, they also made use of fig leaves and even smooth stones for the purpose. At public latrines, little streams of water were always kept running at the foot of the user for washing their hands and rinsing off their rag or sponge! Unfortunately, this would not have decontaminated such materials, leaving the potential for the spread of bacteria if reused without boiling. Toilet facilities were not commonly situated inside homes because of the complicated drainage required; instead, the typical private residence among the Greeks had its supply of chamber pots (enoure¯thra), stored even in dining spaces for ease of use by the attending guests! The contents of a chamber pot were either thrown out into the street (where there might be some sort of channel to collect the refuse) or tossed into a private cesspit. The Greeks appear to have been very good at recycling human waste products; there were even professional koprologoi who came around at regular intervals to clean the streets or empty cesspits and sell the contents as fertilizer to be used in farm fields; the Greeks would not necessarily have recognized any health hazards in doing so. Koprologoi might also be called in to clean out the drainage pipes of plumbed toilet facilities. Some homes, like one example at Selinus in Sicily, had a bathroom

Fashion and Appearance: Hygiene

with a hole in the floor in one corner of it, which was used as the toilet. Moderns would refer to this as a squat or Turkish toilet. In northern Greece, though, at Olynthus, the generally well-equipped houses had toilets with terracotta seats remarkably similar in shape to their modern counterparts. Such indoor “restrooms” were usually set near exterior walls for quick and easy drainage into public sewer systems; the houses at Olynthus, for instance, had drainpipes that took waste from the toilets right through the wall into channels carved into the streets. Such wastedrainage systems have been identified most commonly in gymnasia and bathhouses of the ancient Greek world, which were typically funded well-enough to possess the plumbing needed for refuse drainage. The Greeks would have flushed most of their toilets by using buckets full of water, but in some locales, as on the island of Delos, private and public toilet facilities appear to have been flushed using the overflow from connected water cisterns. The ancient Greeks also contributed to their general hygiene by taking frequent baths; indeed, a bath each afternoon was fairly typical in their society, and, furthermore, they often bathed on special occasions associated with religious rituals, which occupied a large portion of their calendar year. From the fourth century BCE onward, more affluent Greeks could afford to install bathrooms in their own homes complete with toilet, loute¯rion, and bathtub linked to drainage canals. Water for bathing was not piped in, though, but rather carried in using kettles from the kitchen, where typically it had been heated. As public bathhouses (balaneia) and private bathrooms became more common from the fifth century BCE onward, the Greeks often constructed such facilities close to sources of either the purest water from underground springs or to salt water along the seashore or to sulfurous waters emanating in volcanic areas. At a gymnasium in Priene in Asia Minor, each individual bathtub had its own waterspout, delivering fresh spring water to the bather from a cavern nearby. Even if the ancient Greeks did not fully understand why particular types of water were health-bringing, they certainly did recognize the positive effects on the human body and one’s sense of well-being. Moreover, they carefully kept water intended for toilet use or bathing separate from water intended for drinking or cooking, blocking one off from the other whether by walls or rooms or other management of space, thus demonstrating their recognition of the dangers of contamination. In addition to keeping themselves clean, the Greeks were constantly keeping their immediate household environment clean. They thoroughly cleaned their vegetables and other produce, as well as cups, plates, bowls, utensils, and surfaces for eating and cooking. They appear to have washed the walls and especially the floors of their houses on a daily basis with non-potable water. They used cistern or rainwater to wash their cloths regularly in lye (ligdos) and ashes; some private laundry

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tubs (actually large containers called pithoi) have been found as big as three feet across. The Greeks also built communal laundry basins for use by multiple families. All these activities, as reported in every sort of ancient Greek writing from comedic plays to handbooks for gourmet chefs and as revealed in the archaeological evidence, were for the ancient Greeks routine behaviors bordering on ritual. Personal hygiene relied much on communal hygiene, that is, sanitation. Fresh water from ubiquitous fountains and the facilities for cleanliness offered by local bathhouses and gymnasia, which were frequented regularly by the bulk of the population, contributed to public hygiene. Although there is little evidence of sewage works among the ancient Greeks before the fifth century BCE, afterward such evidence increases quite a bit. At Pella in Macedon, as at Priene and on Delos, the regular washing of floors in private homes actually helped flush the interconnected drainage systems, consisting of covered sewers under the streets. Communities like Athens invested in storm drains; in fact, to make their main marketplace as sanitary as possible, the fifth-century Athenians crisscrossed it with drainage canals and pipes that fed into a sewer, which itself eventually emptied into the Eridanus River. Further development of private and public drains heading outside the limits of communities took place in Hellenistic times; the drainage systems of great Hellenistic metropolises like Alexandria and Antioch took considerable quantities of sewage away from populated areas and out into the Mediterranean Sea. Many customs of ancient Greek hygiene had some connection to their concepts of ritual purity and pollution (miasma), the belief that something was a threat to society or the proper order of things. The use of fire and water in specified instances cleansed individuals, places, and whole communities of perceived moral guilt or imperfection disliked by the gods, allowing those individuals, places, and communities to once again be in communion with those gods. So, for instance, believing that dark spirits had caused an epidemic or other outbreak of severe illness, the ancient Greeks would not only light fires or torches to drive away those entities but also purify buildings or even the entire city with smoke from juniper, myrtle, rosemary, and especially laurel or sulfur. They regarded such natural substances as having the power to purify in a religious sense the space fumigated and to make that space livable again; to a certain extent, they were correct, especially in the case of sulfur as a cleansing agent. Believing that menstrual blood brought miasma, the Greeks had rules and rites for the cleansing of a menstruating woman and her household; similar hygienic regulations applied to the persons in a house where childbirth had taken place, considered unsanitary until postpartum bleeding had stopped. Individuals washed their hands after visiting a home in which someone had died or had been laid in state, since death in a home also brought pollution requiring religious as well as hygienic cleansing over a period of days.

Fashion and Appearance: Jewelry

The Greeks kept their sacred spaces quite clean, again primarily as a matter of religious piety and respect for the gods, but with the fringe benefit of improved hygienic conditions there. For example, they thoroughly cleaned all sacred vessels used in religious services especially sacrifices. They also bathed themselves before making prayers or sacrifices to a god, typically using fresh spring water or sea water, each of which was considered to have particular sacred powers. Whether or not they were fully aware of what they were doing in all cases, the ancient Greeks engaged in many behaviors and rites that promoted relatively good hygiene. Perhaps this should not surprise us from a culture in which gods and heroes were frequently imagined as meticulously cleansing themselves or in which athletes took excellent care of their bodies to maintain maximum health and fitness. See also: Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths; Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Food and Drink: Nutrition and Malnutrition; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Housing Architecture; Infrastructure; Plague/Epidemic Disease; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Gymnasia/ Palaestrae; Leisure Activities; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Biology; Botany; Engineering; Medicine FURTHER READING Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Ancient Athens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. King, H., ed. 2005. Health in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Lucore, S., and M. Trümper, eds. 2013. Greek Baths and Bathing Culture. Walpole, MA: Peeters. Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Yegül, F. 1992. Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

JEWELRY Ancient Greek artisans manufactured many forms of ornaments or jewelry (chlide¯, chrysophoria, chroˉmata, kosmoi, kompsoi) for clients across the socioeconomic scale and around the Greek territories. Designed with consummate skill and decorated through engraving and embossing with motifs both naturalistic (fruit, nuts,

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seeds, flowers, leaves, birds, lions, and snakes) and mythical (centaurs, hippocampi, and satyrs), ancient Greek jewelry served not only to enhance the appearance and status of living people but also of the gods, since offerings of such ornaments were made at their temples and even their statues were decorated with such baubles. The ancient Greeks wore finger rings (daktylioi, krikoi) of metal from at least the Bronze Age. In that time period, rather simple iron rings seem to have been quite prestigious. In addition, the Greeks of that era sported signet rings (sphragiste¯res) in precious metal, primarily gold, as seen in the examples from tombs at Mycenae, dating to the fourteenth century BCE. With the collapse of Mycenaean culture (c. 1200 BCE), the wearing of rings evidently dropped off, but by the sixth or seventh centuries BCE, their use reemerged. From the fourth century BCE onward, they became quite ornamented in terms of engraving the precious metal itself and especially the gemstones set into it. Rings were often considered to have magical properties because of how they were made. For instance, green jaspers engraved with erotic images were thought to arouse strong mutual attraction if set in rings worn by a sexually active couple. If lapis lazuli, a gemstone considered sacred to Aphrodite, were engraved with an image of the goddess and placed atop the eye of a wryneck (a “bird of madness” associated with her) and set in a ring, that talisman would attract the attentions of the opposite sex and make the wearer pleasing to his or her own gender. The ancients believed in magic rings that had the power to make the wearer physically stronger than others, to protect the wearer against dangers such as illness, to put other people to sleep, and even to make the wearer fly. Perhaps the most famous story of a magical ring involved the shepherd Gyges, who, according to legend, became king of Lydia thanks to such a ring. Gyges had once discovered a gold ring on a corpse hidden deep under the ground; when he took the ring for himself and began to twist it around on his finger, he found that he could make himself invisible. With that power, he orchestrated the assassination of Candaules and seized his throne. As far back as the Bronze Age, the Greeks made use of gemstones (sphragides, pse¯phoi) in their jewelry. The Greeks made use of emeralds, aquamarines, and sapphires, all of which were too hard to be engraved, as well as softer quartzes like agate, plasma, jasper, carnelian, sard, and red garnet, amethyst, and lapis lazuli. Using engraving wheels and powdered emery, they carved the stones into round, almond, or sling-stone shapes and using hand drills they engraved them with intaglios, usually in animal or human motifs. The earliest signatures from Greek professional engravers appear on products from the island of Melos in the seventh century BCE; the mineral-rich island became a center for gemstone production and importation, especially from Egypt. Names of famous engravers even appeared in literature, like Alexander’s favorite, Pyrgoteles.

Fashion and Appearance: Jewelry

A revival in the gemstone art and trade took place in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE); from that time onward, for instance, gems with Egyptian scarabs carved into them became very popular throughout the Greek world. By at least the second century BCE, portraits and replicas of famous sculptures were engraved into gems. Greek engravers preferred agate, onyx, and sardonyx for the production of cameos because they could carve into the layers of such stones three-dimensional intaglios with foreground and background in different colors and even textures. Besides rings, gemstones of various sorts formed part of other jewelry, especially in chokers and as pendants (kremaste¯ria) in necklaces. The Bronze Age frescoes from the Minoan and the Mycenaean cultures portray the wearing of necklaces (deraia, hormoi); the famous “Ladies in Blue” from Knossos, for instance, shows three women wearing multiple necklaces threaded with a variety of shaped beads. A necklace from Malia on Crete dated to the seventeenth century BCE consists of

Gold armband with Heracles knot and inlaid with garnets, emeralds, and enamel, third to second century BCE. Ancient Greek jewelers developed exquisitely fine skills in working with precious materials, as seen in the design and execution of this example, which functioned not only as a personal ornament but also as an amulet, since the Heracles knot was believed to have miraculous powers protective of its wearer. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Christos G. Bastis Gift, 1999)

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almond-shaped beads of gold alternating with suspended teardrops of gold. Generations later, the necklaces from the fourth-century BCE Derveni tomb contain dozens of little pendants resembling hearts or darts; a little head of Heracles found there probably served as a pendant for a now-lost necklace. A gold necklace from Sedes in northern Greece consists of seven crisscrossing tendrils, as in a vine, with a little cupid figure standing at the center. Fashion trends in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) led to longer, hanging necklaces, some strap-style. The Greeks were also familiar with the jewelry worn by foreigners and some few may have adopted them as a curiosity for themselves, though likely not many because, again, such jewelry would have been regarded as a sign of barbarism. So, for instance, the Gallic peoples with whom Greeks came into contact, principally through warfare in the third century BCE, were renowned in the Greek mind for wearing torques (streptoi) around their necks; these consisted of amazingly fine strands of gold thread twined together into serpentine ropes to form an open-ended choker. Similarly, even though wearing bracelets (  pselia, karpodesmata, boubalia) went back to the Bronze Age, most of those worn in later eras of Greek history followed the Median fashion (maniake¯s). Men and women made use of various bracelets to ornament the wrist and elbow; women also made use of anklets (chlidoˉnes, pedai, perisphyria). Both sexes also wore thigh ornaments. Archaeological evidence from Sedes has revealed such a piece of incredibly detailed jewelry displaying the magic knot of Heracles (named for the way he tied the skin of the Nemean Lion around his neck), two intertwined loops with four small lion heads protruding from them at the ends of intricate ropes, all in gold. From at least Hellenistic times, Greeks believed that the Heracles knot possessed the apotropaic properties of an amulet. Ancient Greeks, especially women, fastened or tightened their clothing, particularly the peplos, by means of pins (kalamoi, kerkides) and brooches ( porpai, pepornai, enetai), often of precious metal. To aid in the molding of their hairstyles, women also made use of various kinds of jewelry. The frescoes of the Bronze Age display women with strands of beaded jewelry interwoven in their hair, for example. In later times, long hairpins of metal were popular, sometimes in gold, their heads consisting of simple knobs or elaborate carvings in ivory or precious metal, as well as brooches and various sorts of clips (sundesma). In Athens, for instance, both men and women made use of hairpins topped by cicadas fashioned out of gold. More affluent women also used hairnets (kekruphaloi) woven in thread of gold to keep their hairstyle in place, as well as semicircular metal frames (stephanai), also sometimes fashioned out of precious metal and often quite intricate in artistic design. On special occasions, ancient Greek traditions called for the decoration of the head by means of leaves and flowers formed into wreaths (stephanoi). Over time,

Fashion and Appearance: Jewelry

those who could afford to do so substituted precious metal and gems for the flowers and leaves. Thus, they might wear a simple thread of gold about the head or something much more elaborate, as in an example found in southern Italy consisting of a wreath of oak leaves, asters, morning glories, narcissus, myrtle, and ivy, all in gold. Such plant imagery in head ornaments was very popular across the Greek world; the Derveni tomb, for instance, contained a gold diadem ornamented in acanthus and vine shapes and a wreath of gold designed like myrtle leaves. A gilded silver diadem from the Great Tomb at Vergina shows incised serpentine scales all around the outside, while the front resembles a bow with frills emerging from its center. Scholars suspect that goldsmiths employed in the making of these ornaments could only have achieved such fine detail through the use of some sort of quartz crystal for magnification purposes. Ancient Greek studs and pendants for earrings (  plastra, stalagmia, chrysoloboi) required a similar level of skill and instruments. An earring pendant from Derveni, for instance, was exquisitely shaped from gold into two bees in profile apparently embracing over a honeycomb. Other pendant styles included tripleteardropped (triglenoi), pinecone (strobilia), grape bunches (botrudia), and flower cups (kalukes), as well as pearl earrings (krotalia), among many others. Since the Greeks had no clip-on earrings, anyone who wished to wear them had to have their ears pierced, which apparently was very common among women and less common among men. Just as the Greeks learned from the jewelry traditions of other cultures, their own styles inspired jewelry creations abroad. For example, the burial goods in the royal tumuli at Duvanli in Thrace, dating to the fifth century BCE, include lots of Greek ornaments, either imported from Greece or made by Greek artisans working for the Thracian court, as well as unique spin-offs from Greek style, perhaps made by locals. Since the discovery of the fabulous gold jewelry from Mycenae’s Tomb 3, dubbed by Heinrich Schliemann as the “jewels of Helen,” modern people have marveled at the skill and ingenuity that went into the production of such ornaments in the ancient Greek world. Certainly, most Greeks would not have owned anything of that quality, but archaeological finds and literary accounts confirm that many Greeks sported some sort of jewelry, whether in genuine precious metal and gemstones or in imitations of lead and other inexpensive materials. Jewelry existed in their world, as it does in ours, to adorn the self and to impress others. See also: Arts: Gold and Silver; Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/ Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets; Metalworking; Mining;

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Trade; Family and Gender: Men; Sexuality; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Clothing, Classical Age, Males; Foreign Dress; Hairstyles; Headgear; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Magic; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods FURTHER READING Boardman, J. 1995. The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Boardman, J. 2001. Greek Gems and Finger Rings. London: Thames & Hudson. Healy, J. F. 1978. Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. London: Thames & Hudson. Henig, N. 1994. Classical Gems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Henig, N., and M. Vickers, eds. 1993. Cameos in Context. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum. Higgins, R. 1980. Greek and Roman Jewellery. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ogden, J. 1982. Jewelry of the Ancient World. Milan: Rizzoli. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Treister, M. Y. 1996. The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History. Leiden: Brill. Vickers, M., and D. Gill. 1994. Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Williams, D., ed. 1997. The Art of the Greek Goldsmith. London: British Museum Press. Williams, D., and J. Ogden. 1994. Greek Gold: Jewelry of the Classical World. New York: Abrams.

FOOD AND DRINK

INTRODUCTION The ancient Greeks understood the importance of proper diet in human health, even devoting one of their three branches of medicine to dietetics; indeed, they were the originators of what moderns call the “Mediterranean diet.” The limitations posed by terrain, weather, and other environmental factors combined with the needs of their communities meant that ancient Greek agriculture and animal husbandry had to be diversified to flourish and this led, as a consequence, to a particularly diversified food supply. The staple foods of the ancient Greek world included cereals, primarily wheat and barley, olives and olive oil, and grapes and wine; these foods Greeks simply could not live without. In addition, they ate a lot of fruit, many sorts of vegetables and legumes, and an array of herbs and wild greens. Just as in modern Greece, livestock provided milk for a variety of cheeses. The ancient Greeks consumed much less meat than modern people do, usually on special occasions, particularly religious festivals. Meat came from hunting and fowling and from domesticated geese, goats, sheep, and especially pigs, and sometimes from cattle. The Greeks also had an abundance of fish and other forms of seafood. Besides the foods available in the neighborhood of their own communities, ancient Greeks traded for items such as spices and cane sugar from as far away as India and chickens from Persia and they learned how to prepare dishes according to the styles of other cultures. Still, the Greeks tended to draw sharp distinctions between what they ate and how they ate as compared to other cultures, regarding their own ways as indicators of civilized life and the ways of others as, generally, “barbaric.” In their world, food and drink formed an essential aspect of living in community and of participating within one’s group (such as family or associations to which one belonged) and so took on cultural significance as marking one’s communal identity and status. Among the ancient Greeks, with whom one ate and on what occasions mattered just as much as what one ate.

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BANQUETS. See FEASTS AND BANQUETS BREAD Bread (artos) stood as one of the central elements of the ancient Greek diet throughout their history. Even the famous poet Homer portrays the heroes of old feasting with baskets full of bread all around them. The ancient Greeks made bread out of a variety of ingredients, primarily barley and wheat. Of the varieties of wheat available to them, they preferred to use soft summer wheat. This variety contains sufficient gluten protein to provide the elasticity required in the preparation and leavening of bread dough and yields a chewy rather than a dry and hard product. Soft wheat was harder to come by for most Greek communities, however, because it grew best in far northern climates, like the region around the Black Sea. Thus, those who could afford the costs of importing such wheat, like the city-state of Athens, acquired and utilized more of it than other populations. Wheat became more common in bread production during the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), but most Greeks continued to depend on barley, as they had done for many generations, to make their breads. While wheat dough made for a lighter, better tasting, less bitter bread, barley dough still made more nourishing bread that everyone in ancient Greece ate. Ancient bakers, both those at home and in professional bakeries (artopoˉlia), began by employing saddle querns, lever mills, and, eventually, hand mills to grind threshed grain into flour. By modern standards, ancient bread flour would have been coarse, resembling semolina, though improvements in grinding and sifting techniques and mechanisms led to flours of greater fineness from the fourth century BCE onward. This meant a range of flours and, thus, of breads, some finely sifted (artos aleurote¯sis), some coarse (kollix), and some unsifted (artos synkomistos). Indeed, one type of bread contained whole groats (erikitas artos), while another was particularly rich in bran (piturias artos). Ancient Greek bread doughs were typically simple, consisting of grain flour, salt, and water. A special loaf, called the thalysion arton, was prepared from the ground-up first fruits of the cereal harvest and offered to the goddess Demeter each year; the Greeks frequently mixed cereals in this way to produce a complex bread dough. They also made bread from bean or legume flour (lekithite¯s artos), from chestnuts (kastana), and from acorns (balanoi). They added herbs (like bay leaves), spices (like coriander and pepper), and seeds (especially anise and poppy), for more flavor, and even made cheesy bread (artos tyroeis). Still, straight wheat bread, usually referred to simply as artos, was the most favored.

Food and Drink: Bread

Of course, to make bread, one needed some sort of leavening. The ancient Greeks called this zyme¯, and it was produced naturally through the interaction of airborne yeast with the grain in the bread dough. Grain was left soaking in water for a period of time to promote natural fermentation, for instance; the soaked grain, or just the fermented liquid from the soaking, could then be used in leavening the bread dough. A popular bread at Athens, called anastatos, was particularly wellleavened and, thus, very light. Unleavened bread (azumos artos) was also regularly consumed, as were unleavened barley cakes (mazai), frequently offered to the gods and the spirits of the deceased but also a staple in the everyday diet. Some bread dough was not kneaded before it was cooked, producing a loaf known as artos atriptos. Most bread dough, however, was kneaded in troughs (groˉnai, kardopoi, magides, maktrai). One of the finest bread loaves thus produced was called artos triskopanistos, thrice kneaded; this may have been the bread playwrights referred to, using contemporary slang, as “Achillean” because of its excellence. The ancient Greeks were also creative in the shaping of bread dough; they formed the dough into familiar circular loaves (kykloi), into braids (  paraplokai), mushroom shapes (boletinoi), and even flower-shaped rolls (anthoˉdeis). Sacred loaves were often formed into meaningful symbolic shapes (quite lurid in some cases, at least by modern standards). The city-state of Argos had commercial bread bakeries as far back as the late Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), as did Athens from Classical times (490–323 BCE); in such establishments, professional bakers (artopoioi) employed large terracotta ovens (that is, wood-burning kilns) to produce enough bread for market consumption; Greek marketplaces frequently were home to professional bread sellers (artopoˉleis). Most Greek homes did not possess ovens for baking. Those that did, say among the local elite, were “operated” by the family’s slaves; Lydian and Phoenician servants seem to have been highly prized as bakers at Athens. For most people, homemade bread was baked on top of the smoldering embers of a brazier (lebe¯s) covered by a terracotta lid (klibanos) or under the hot ashes themselves (resulting in what Greeks called the spodite¯s artos). Another method was to suspend the prepared dough on a metal plate or inside a special wide-bottomed metal pan and to cook it over a fire (which resulted in the kribanite¯s artos). The ancient Greeks sometimes cooked their bread with generous amounts of olive oil (the aleiphatite¯s) or basted with vinegar and lard (oxylipe¯s artos). They enjoyed extra-toasted bread (artos apopyrias) and a sort of extra-crunchy biscuit bread (artos dipyrite¯s). Just like their modern descendants, the ancients liked to dip day-old bread in milk or sweet wine, the latter especially for breakfast. The gourmet author Athenaeus (second century CE) noted over seventy different types of bread by name. In ancient times, bread was the staff of life. Indeed,

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bread made from barley was used as a metaphor for one’s daily work, the effort that would bring one’s essential sustenance. No one in the world of the ancient Greeks could have imagined life without bread. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Landownership; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Dessert; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Hospitality; Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils; Legumes; Meals; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Olives and Olive Oil; Soups and Stews; Vegetarianism; Wine; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Machines FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Lucas, A. 2006. Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology. Leiden: Brill. Moritz, L. A. 1958. Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

CHEESE AND OTHER DAIRY PRODUCTS According to ancient Greek mythology, even the barbarous Cyclopes, the primeval one-eyed monsters who brought so much grief to the crew of the hero Odysseus, knew how to make cheese (tyros); indeed, they were expert cheese-makers! Perhaps this reflected an old prejudice that cheese was a food fit only for pastoral,

Food and Drink: Cheese and Other Dairy Products

“partly civilized” people. Yet, regardless of such prejudices that labeled cheese as the fare of commoners, even the elite consumed cheese. Indeed, cheese served as one of the staple foods in the ancient Greek diet at all levels of society. The Greeks made cheese from the milk (gala) of sheep, goats, and cows (and sometimes even mares and donkeys). They considered cheese made from goat’s milk as the best quality and cheese made from cow’s milk as the lowest quality. Sheep’s milk provided the basis for most of the cheese consumed by the ancient Greeks. Typically, they used rennet (tamisos, puar, puetia), an enzyme extracted from the stomach of suckling calves, lambs, or goat kids (and sometimes even from deer fawns or leverets), to coagulate the milk. Similar enzymes found in the sap of fig branches (opos, opias) also worked, as did wine vinegar (oxos, targanon), but not as well as rennet did. Greek cheese-makers produced hard or aged cheeses as well as fresh or soft cheeses, each in many varieties. According to ancient experts on agriculture, to produce hard cheeses, the Greeks took milk and gently warmed it (as one would do in preparing a baby’s bottle today), added the coagulant, and then drained the milk into wickerwork baskets or molds to collect the fatty portion; this was firmed up by pressing, then salted and dried out over a particular period of time, often hung from the ceiling by rope. Sometimes, the Greeks cured their hard cheeses in salt or vinegar brine and even smoked them using applewood. Apparently, though, the Greeks never allowed their hard cheeses to gather mold or to ripen in the way of the “stinky” cheeses enjoyed by modern gourmands (like Stilton or bleu cheese). Fresh cheeses, made from adding more enzyme to the milk left behind after the first extraction of fat (as in the case of ricotta cheese today), were not typically salted or otherwise cured, but they might be sun-dried for a bit. The Greeks ate their hard cheeses (sometimes even while still a bit green) chopped, crushed, pounded, sliced, or grated. Bronze cheese graters dating as far back as the ninth century BCE have been discovered on the big island of Euboea, not surprisingly, considering its fame as a land of cows in ancient times; nearby Boeotia was also well-known in the time of the Peloponnesian War for its cheese production. The Greeks liked roasting bits of hard cheese, too, over an open fire as a snack. Cheeses both hard and soft were often enjoyed with bread. In fact, certain Greek communities earned a reputation for their spreadable soft cheeses, like the oxygalaktinos of Pergamum in Anatolia. The Greeks of Sicily, especially in the territory of Syracuse, made a famous fresh cheese, the trophalis, also known from Cythnos and Achaea. The Romans became very fond of a garlic-honey cheese spread, muttoˉtos, which likely had its origins in the Greek territories. Cheese featured in all sorts of ancient Greek recipes. For instance, they mixed cheese with oil and vinegar as a basting for roasted fish and liberally sprinkled cheese on salt-fish to create a popular dish called tyrotarichos. They basted other

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roasted meats with cheese as well, such as pork belly, and mixed roasted meat and the blood from it with cheese, cumin, and salt to create hyposphagma. They chopped up meat and mixed it bloody with cheese, honey, herbs, and vinegar to produce a dish called muma. They dressed up whole onions with cheese together with vinegar, honey, olive oil, and herbs. They made an omelet wrapped in fig leaves (hence, the name thrion) containing cheese, milk, eggs, honey, lard, and flour. They baked cheese into their breads (tyroeis artoi) and made small cheese puddings (magides). They combined cheese with barley to create a porridge called pasta. They commonly grated cheese in wine as a remedy for illnesses of the stomach and concocted a ceremonial beverage at festivals known as kykeoˉn that included wine, barley, honey, and grated goat cheese. Finally, dessert in a Greek home frequently consisted of various cheeses eaten together with honey, fruits, and nuts or beans; one sort of cheese taken at dessert was pakta, or cream cheese, for example. Many Greeks made their own cheeses, but those who did not could find them sold by weight in the cheese market, like the one in the Athenian agora that was simply referred to as “the fresh cheese.” Here one could have purchased cheeses imported from other Greek communities as well as local dairy products, perhaps even local milk and butter. In the challenging conditions of food preservation and travel during ancient times, cheese provided a safe substitute for fresh milk and butter. The ancient Greeks produced butter (bouturon) by shaking warmed milk. They made use of it primarily as a base in concocting medicines rather than as a food; in fact, they typically regarded eating butter as an indicator of a barbaric culture. Similarly, they considered the drinking of fresh milk (gala) a mark of barbaric, nomadic peoples, who lived close to their herds. Yet ancient Greek peasants certainly drank a lot of sheep and goat’s milk (mare’s milk was rarely consumed), since they, too, lived in close enough contact with their livestock to enjoy the stuff before it spoiled. Hence, elite, urban authors in the Greek world criticized milk as a peasant’s beverage, whereas the proud peasant-poet Hesiod reveled in his descriptions of milk and milk-based foods. Medical writers muddied the waters further with their frequent discussions about the qualities of milk, especially its thickness or fattiness and the nutrients it contained from the plants eaten by milkproducing animals. Although such writers regarded milk as highly nutritious, as a strengthener of teeth and gums, and as a useful mouth and stomach rinse in case of poisoning, they also recognized that milk could cause a variety of bad digestive reactions, especially as a laxative, as well as joint pain, skin rashes, and kidney stones. The Greeks primarily made use of milk as an ingredient in desserts and other dishes, such as breads or cracked grains soaked in milk or honey-milk cakes. They tried to consume it as soon as possible after collection, for instance, in the early morning hours, and may have sometimes kept it chilled by means of ice (if that was

Food and Drink: Cheese and Other Dairy Products

available because of proximity to snowfalls). Certainly, we know that the Greeks made little terracotta bottles to feed milk to babies. They also poured libations of milk, for instance, at funerals or commemorations of the deceased, alongside honey and wine. The ancient Greeks understood the digestive difficulties associated with eating too much cheese (especially hard cheeses) and had some sense of what we would today call lactose intolerance (which has been proven to be genetically common in the Mediterranean region). Yet cheese, and other dairy products to a lesser extent, continued to play a significant role in their diet and their health across the centuries. No wonder, then, that the ancient Greeks considered cheese to be one of the three basic provisions, together with grain and wine, for their military personnel. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Fishing; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Food and Drink: Bread; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Wine; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Leisure Activities; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Medicine FURTHER READING Anderson, J. K. 1985. Hunting in the Ancient World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Bekker-Nielsen, T., ed. 2005. Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Campbell, G. L., ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Gallant, T. W. 1991. Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kalof, L., ed. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg.

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CONDIMENTS AND SEASONINGS The Greeks referred to condiments or seasonings for the enhancement of food as he¯dysmata or artymata. These consisted mainly of herbs (botanai) and spices (aroˉmata) but also included oils, sauces, or marinades (opsa, bommata, embammata), sweeteners (glukanseis, he¯dynte¯ria, melitoentes), and certain vegetables (laxana). From the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) through most of the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), ancient Greeks relied on locally available herbs and spices in their cooking. These included anise (anne¯son), arugula (euzoˉmon), asafetida (lasaron), sweet basil (oˉkimon or lachanon basilikon), bay leaf (daphne¯), capers (kappareis), chamomile (anthemis), chives (krommuoge¯teion), cress (kardamis, thlaspis), cumin (kuminon), coriander (koriannon), dill (ane¯thon), fennel (marathon), fenugreek (keration, te¯lis, boukeras), mint (mintha, he¯dyosmos), mustard (napu, sinapi, sine¯pus), wild myrtle (murrine¯), parsley (selinon), rosemary (libanoˉtis, dendrolibanos, kampsanema), sage (sphakos), samphire parsley (kre¯thmos), sesame (sesamis), and thyme (thymos, thymon). They also made much use of locally available vegetables to add flavor to their dishes, such as chicory (kichorion), endive ( pikris), garlic (skorodon), leek (prason), and especially onion (kidalon, kromuon). Such seasonings enhanced a variety of foods. For instance, the ancient Greeks sometimes basted bread with cheese and oil and sprinkled it with anise seed. They flavored shellfish with mint, sprinkled ground cumin seed on spit-roasted hares or on roasted fish, seasoned roasted fish or onions with asafetida, added asafetida to pork soup, or sprinkled thyme on roasted pork. Capers were mixed with parsley to enhance the taste of eggs, coriander seed with boiled lentils, thyme with boiled cabbage, and mustard seed with boiled beets or turnips or sprinkled on roasted cucumber. A hash of precooked poultry meat was heavily seasoned and served as the cold dish called mattue¯. Even wine was sometimes seasoned, with dill (ane¯thite¯s) or myrtle (myrsinite¯s), for example. The ancient Greeks combined such seasonings with wine vinegar (oxos, alibas) or oil, or both, to create dressings, marinades, and sauces for their dishes. Condiment oils came from various seeds, such as almonds (amugdalai), safflower (kne¯kelaion), and sesame (se¯same¯), but olive oil (elaion) was most prevalent. Olive oil and vinegar were mixed together to produce a simple dressing called oxelaion or oxyliparon, vinegar and salt brine (halme¯, halmeusis) to make a stronger dressing called oxalme¯. Sometimes the Greeks basted their bread with vinegar and animal fat (oxylipe¯s artos). Cumin seed was soaked in vinegar to make a marinade

Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings

for roasted pork. Mustard seed mixed with onions, capers, and olive oil produced a sauce used on roasted gourds. A sour sauce (abrutake¯) was made of leeks and cress, a particularly sharp sauce from blending capers, onions, and mustard, and a very piquant sauce from green herbs (hypotrimma). Perhaps the most famous sauce that emerged from Greek cuisine, made so by the great popularity it acquired among the Romans, was garos or garon, produced from the pickling of small fish. The Greeks even mixed vinegar and garum (as the Romans called it) together to make a sauce called oxygaron. Herbs and spices also figured in the process of pickling (taricheia) vegetables, adding multiple dimensions of flavor to the preserved food. The ancient Greeks especially employed coriander seed, fennel seed and fennel greens, and white mustard seed in pickling. For instance, they regularly pickled olives with fennel or rape greens with mustard. Parsley pickled in vinegar, known as tybaris, was popular as a salad in Dorian communities. Pickling often employed salt (hals); lots of ancient Greeks would have consumed their fish in salt-pickled form, for example, exported from the Black Sea region in large quantities (as evidenced by the historian Herodotus and by modern excavations). Collected from salt flats or rock-salt mines and formed into bricks for sale, salt was certainly the most important of all locally available seasonings in the Greek territories. Besides wet-salting or brining, used in the pickling process or in sauces and marinades, salt was frequently combined dry with various other condiments to enhance their impact. Of course, it also served as the principle preservative in the ancient world, for everything from cheeses to wine, so sodium consumption was quite high. The ancient Greeks imported seasonings from outside their own territories as well, especially during the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) and under the Roman Emperors (27 BCE– AD 476). Some imports came from the West, like lovage (ligus) from northern Italy, but the vast majority came into Greek communities from the south and east, especially from East Africa, Arabia, and India. These included cardamom (kardamoˉmon), cassia (kasia), cinnamon (kinnamoˉmon), ginger (zingiberis), marjoram (amarakos), myrrh (myrra), pepper ( peperi), silphium, spikenard (nardos), and sumac (rhous mageirikos or Syriakos). From Syria came the unidentified sisoˉn or sinoˉn, the seeds of which were used in food and medicine and from India all sorts of spices identified only by their Greek names, like amoˉmon, nairon, narkaphthon, and narte¯. Some of these foreign spices had been known to Greeks for many centuries, like cinnamon from Ceylon (via Arabia), which had come into the Greek territories as early as the seventh century BCE, or Indian pepper, which had been known to the famous fifth-century BCE physician Hippocrates. Still, later generations of Greeks had greater access to these seasonings, though they were still expensive, as availability grew thanks to expanding trade in Hellenistic and Roman times. Thus,

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the Greeks learned to sprinkle powdered sumac on their roasted meats, to add marjoram to their boiled eels, to mix together vinegar and pepper as a marinade, or to make cakes called artolagana from spices, wine, oil, and milk. They even spiked their wine with myrrh or cinnamon or made trimma, a beverage of pounded groats and spices. To dine on such exotic seasonings became a marker of high status and conspicuous consumption among Hellenistic Greek (and, later on, Roman) elites. Lastly, the ancient Greeks would have included sweeteners, principally honey (meli), among their condiments. They frequently enjoyed what modern people would characterize as sweet-and-sour dishes. For instance, they combined vinegar and honey to make dressings or sauces called oxymelikraton or oxymelikre¯ton. They cut up and pounded meat mixed with honey, vinegar, cheese, coriander, cumin, leeks, and onions to create a dish called muma. The Athenians were perhaps the most renowned honey producers, many of them engaging in beekeeping. In the territory of Attica, a very typical relish for the common man was thymon, a mixture of honey, vinegar, and thyme. All around their world, then, the Greeks had available to them many ingredients for the making of condiments and seasonings and those they acquired from others simply came to enhance an already tasty palate. Herbs and spices harvested from indigenous plants, shrubs, and trees they could consume fresh or preserve by airdrying or pickling; those that came from farther away the Greeks imported in their dried form. Professional spice dealers (aroˉmatopoˉlai) emerged in the marketplaces of the Greek communities, and seasonings became so very common that Greek culture developed proverbs about miserly people being “cumin-seed splitters” or friends beings those one invited to share one’s “salt and table” (hales kai trapeza). See also: Arts: Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Cost of Living; Merchants and Markets; Trade; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Cooking; Dessert; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Grains; Hospitality; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Olives and Olive Oil; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Wine; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Botany; Greek Language Groups; Medicine FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill.

Food and Drink: Cooking Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2002. Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices. London: British Museum Press. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Detienne, M. 1994. The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Eitam, D., and M. Heltzer, eds. 1987. Olive Oil in Antiquity. Padua: Sargon. Frankel, R. 1999. Wine and Oil Production in Antiquity in Israel and Other Mediterranean Countries. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, J. I. 1969. The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moritz, L. A. 1958. Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sandy, D. B. 1989. The Production and Use of Vegetable Oils in Ptolemaic Egypt. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J.  M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

COOKING Despite prejudices that might lead modern people to conclude that cooking (  pepsis, mageirike¯ techne¯, opsartutike¯ techne¯) was “women’s work” in the traditional world of the ancient Greeks—prejudices that seem to find confirmation in the satiric humor of ancient comedians—in point of fact, both men and women knew how to cook and engaged in cooking on a regular basis in ancient Greek society. Indeed, the most famous cooks (eleodytai, mageiroi) from ancient Greek times were all men, and even the heroes of ancient Greek legend, like Achilles and Odysseus, took great pride in their culinary prowess. The majority of the population in ancient Greek communities consisted of farmers. Those farmers, whether men or women, not only knew how to harvest their own crops and slaughter their own livestock, but they also knew how to prepare their own meals from these foodstuffs as a result of practical experience when working long days out in the countryside.

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In urban centers, there seems to have been greater division of labor between men and women. Women did most of the cooking in the private sphere, unless they had servants (that is, slaves) to do so for them. Men still cooked, however. They prepared the sacrifices and the great banquets that resulted from them at most of the religious festivals (only a few of these were particularly prepared by women). Men did not just cook in public; many urban dwellers would have been bachelors or widowers who had to cook for themselves and for their children (again, unless they could afford a slave). Regardless of their gender, ancient Greek cooks in the household kitchens of an urban context, just like their counterparts in rural huts of stone and thatch (very similar to those used by farmers and ranchers until quite recently in the countries of the Mediterranean region), engaged in methods that would be quite familiar to anyone who knows their way around a kitchen today. Extant descriptions and images of ancient Greek food preparation involve cutting and slicing, pounding and grinding of ingredients that were fresh, dried, salted, or pickled. Cooks had available to them all the familiar utensils for these operations, including mortars and pestles of stone, a variety of knives and graters in metal, mixing bowls, platters, stirring spoons, and ladles of wood or terracotta, and so on. Metal or terracotta colanders, strainers, and funnels were on hand to achieve finer texture of flours or liquids. Ancient Greeks did not have stoves of any sort. Cooking in the rural context took place over an open fire, which might also be the case in an urban courtyard. Inside urban kitchens, cooking typically took place over ceramic or bronze braziers (  pyraunoi, escharai), filled with burning coals. The Greeks liked to fry things (tage¯nizoˉ or te¯ganizoˉ) in bronze frying pans (tage¯na). This was especially true of small fish known as anthrakides. Also popular among ancient Greeks, as they are now among modern Greeks, were fried fresh fig leaves (thria) stuffed with cheese, eggs, milk, honey, and flour. Foods might be fried in their own juices or in a generous amount of oil, usually olive oil. In addition to olive oil, Greek cooks utilized the oils from almonds, castor berry, safflower, and sesame in preparing particular recipes. The Greeks boiled (hepsoˉ) a lot of their foods in a ceramic or bronze cooking pot, casserole, or cauldron (chytra, lebe¯s), placed atop the brazier or suspended on a tripod with an open flame underneath in urban settings or over an open fire in the countryside. Greeks ate a lot of boiled cereals as porridge, boiled their vegetables, legumes, and beans, made boiled soups and stews, and boiled various cuts of meat. Once again, they liked to boil or steam their fig leaves stuffed with minced meat and seasonings. Boiling and baking (artopoiia, opte¯sis) were also done in sealed terracotta containers (klibanus, kribanus) placed either atop or underneath the coals of a brazier or those of a country hearth. The expense of the amount of fuel required to generate

Food and Drink: Cooking

sufficient temperature inside a real baking oven meant that few households could afford one, and so such ovens tended to be communal rather than private. Ancient Greek ovens (ipnoi) were either open like modern fireplaces or closed like today’s wood-burning ovens. Ancient Greek bakers would move or remove the heat source (that is, burning wood-coals) inside the oven to control the baking process, just like pizza chefs in Italy do today. They used a special cloth to cover their mouth and nose while working with the oven and its contents. Certainly the most popular form of cooking in the ancient Greek world, whether in the rural or the urban context, was roasting or broiling (optaoˉ, phoˉgoˉ, apanthrakizoˉ). The Greeks made use of grill frames (called te¯gana, just like their frying pans) of metal or terracotta as well as metal roasting spits (obeloi) held by hand or suspended on frames (krateutai) over the heat source. Cooking became a profession for individuals across the Greek territories, many of whom traveled to distant places to ply their art; Pelignas of Macedon, for instance, was sent by Queen Olympias to cook for her son Alexander the Great while in the Persian lands. The Athenians even had slang terms for cooks who came from among their own people (maisoˉnes) as opposed to those who came from abroad (tettiges). Well-respected were professional cooks from Elis in the southwestern Peloponnese, long-experienced with the gastronomic needs of the great festival at Olympia; an example was Coroebus of Elis, who actually won the first recorded victory in the stadion at Olympia! Sicilian chefs (karukeutai) held the highest reputation among the ancient Greeks, similar to French chefs in modern times; famous names in this regard were Epaenetus, Heracleides, and Mithaecus of Syracuse. One might also include here the well-known chefs of southern Italy, like Glaucus of Locri. All these practiced karukeia, opsopoiia, or opsopoie¯tike¯ techne¯, what we would call haute cuisine. For the Greeks, the art of fine cookery consisted of adding just the right extras, condiments, seasonings, oils, meat juices, wines, and so on, in just the right proportions to the staple ingredients of their diet, or pairing those staples with just the right side dishes, to achieve a memorable and delectable meal. Skill in this regard separated the chef from the average cook. The Middle Comic playwright Dionysius of Sinope has his chef character in the Thesmophoros assert that just a single one of his meat balls would convey to the eater the full complexity of his art! Ancient Greek chefs trained under the tutelage of particular experts in their craft (as is related of the characters Sophon and Democritus and their master Labdacus of Sicily in Anthippus’ play The Veiled Man). They competed vehemently and had their rivals, who criticized each other for their faults in skill, discernment, and style (as noted by Posidippus of Macedon in his New Comedy The Man Recovering his Sight).

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Of course, there was a prejudice among professional cooks not to rely on cookbooks but to be masterful inventors of their own specialties. Still, ancient Greek cooks, and others interested in the culinary art, did compose cookbooks (opsartusia, opsartutikon, opsologia). The earliest, by Mithaecus of Syracuse, appeared by the end of the fifth century BCE and it was followed by many others. Although made fun of by Middle Comedy in the fourth-century BCE and New Comedy in the third-century BCE for being pretentious, arrogant, and conceited, ancient Greek chefs clearly held high expectations of themselves and were held to high standards within Greek society, in terms of their proficiency in a number of complex skills and even education in medicine and other sciences, as well as artistry (as in the cases of the chef characters from Sosipater’s Middle Comedy Liar, Euphron’s New Comedy The Brothers, and Nicomachus’ New Comedy Ilithyia). Together, such skills and knowledge would allow them to provide excellent and especially memorable meals for the well-to-do. Talented chefs found reward in places like Sybaris in southern Italy, where they received golden crowns for success at public banquets. In fact, the Sybarites even protected great local and foreign chefs through a sort of patent law that prohibited any other person from serving the same extraordinary dish for a year’s time from its first being served by its chef inventor. Chefs also found satisfaction in their fame, which attracted ancient Greek foodies, like the fourth-century BCE poet Archestratus of Gela, who traveled the Greek world to experience new culinary delights! As in so many other aspects of their society, the ancient Greeks took great pride in the preparation of their traditional foods and in their advanced culinary abilities. Cooking for them became both a skill and an art form. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Fishing; Family and Gender: Men; Women; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Condiments and Seasonings; Dessert; Drunkenness; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils; Legumes; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Wine; Housing and Community: Country Life; Marketplaces; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Education; Medicine FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill.

Food and Drink: Dessert Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2002. Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices. London: British Museum Press. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Detienne, M. 1994. The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Slater, W. J., ed. 1991. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

DAIRY PRODUCTS. See CHEESE AND OTHER DAIRY PRODUCTS DESSERT Sometimes at the start of the main meal of the day but usually at the end of it, the ancient Greeks partook of trage¯mata, sweets or desserts. These included such familiar items as cakes (plakountes) and pastries (  pemmata or popana), as well as fruits and other “finger foods,” often eaten together with wine, particularly sweet or sweetened wine (he¯dyoinos). As sugar is to modern desserts, grape must (gleukos, or boiled down wine hepse¯ma or siraion) and especially honey (meli) were to ancient Greek ones. The trade in sugar (sakchar), which came in a more or less crystalline form all the way from India (where sugar cane was farmed), did not really reach the Greeks until the first century CE. So, not only did the many generations of Greeks before then not know about sugar, but even those who did afterward found it fairly costly and so not that economical to use. Honey, on the other hand, whether collected from the wild or from the hives of professional beekeepers, was an abundant commodity of the Greek territories;

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beekeeping became crucial to Greek cooking and society, just as sugar-cane farming and sugar production are now. Indeed, the governments of Greek communities encouraged the production of honey and reaped profits from it in the form of taxes. The most prized honey, pale and sweet, was said to come from Attica (especially from the bees that lived off the wild thyme on Mt. Hymettos); other prominent types of honey came from Cos, Rhodes, Thasos, Cyprus, Calymnos, Lycia, and northern Sicily. Springtime honey was the most valued. Ancient Greeks sweetened wine and milk with honey, mixed honey with clotted cream, steeped cheese in honey, blended honey with ice or snow and fruit to make a frozen treat, and baked honey tartlets. Of course, they enjoyed consuming raw honey, especially at the close of a banquet, and they even seem to have eaten whole honeycombs. They regarded honey, the “heavenly dew,” as a special gift from the Muses to babies, who, it was said, would gain wisdom and intelligence from eating honey at the earliest possible age! Honey served as the principal sweetener in many ancient Greek dessert recipes, especially in the many sorts of cakes enjoyed by the ancient Greeks; as far as we know, they did not make cookies. Besides honey, ancient Greek bakers made use of a small range of ingredients in their cakes, typically barley or wheat, sesame, fruits, and nuts. The Greeks loved honey cakes of all kinds, which they referred to as melitoessa, melitoutta, or melitoˉmata. There were cakes of wheatmeal, sesame, and honey (itria) and barley meal, sesame, and honey (se¯samountes), as well as the cake of honey and pounded sesame (kopte¯ se¯samis). The Greeks made a fruitcake, containing many different sorts of dried fruit (basically, whatever was on hand), known as pankarpia. The epipastos was a sort of cake sprinkled with dried fruits and nuts on the outside. Some cakes they deep-fried (enkrides) and then smothered in honey. They also made poppy-seed cakes (koptai me¯koˉnos) and a sort of cake (ame¯s) in which milk or cream ( gala, paxu gala, lipos galaktos, galaktopage¯s) was the most important ingredient. Probably the most favored cake of all in the ancient Greek dessert menu was the cheesecake (tyroeis plakous). Although apparently not part of the Homeric warrior culture, cheesecakes later came in a dizzying variety of types; the most common seems to have been the hypoturis, made from cheese curds mixed with honey and pressed in a mold. Athenian cheesecakes were regarded as the best, but well-known recipes also came from Laconia, Crete, and Samos. A favored dessert consisted of cheesecake and honey-roasted birds, like thrushes. There were even professional cheesecake dealers in the Greek communities. Greek authors record dozens of different shapes of cakes. One was called pyramis and, not surprisingly, had the shape of a pyramid. Another known as the skoˉle¯x was shaped like a worm; the kre¯pis had the form of a boot, while the episele¯nos resembled the crescent moon. The Greeks referred to a hollow cake made of wheat

Food and Drink: Dessert

as empemptas and a broad, flat cake as elate¯r. The Sicilian Greeks favored large round cakes, epikuklioi, while other Greeks liked small round cakes, kolluba. Cakes in ancient Greek culture often served important social and communal purposes. For instance, at the close of every symposion (the after-dinner drinking party hosted by a Greek man for his male relatives and friends), the guest who had stayed awake until the party had ended (which sometimes meant early in the morning) received a special cake as his reward. They called this cake the pyramous and it was made of roasted wheat and honey. Just as in modern times, the ancient Greeks celebrated weddings with cakes; the sesame-honey cake (se¯samoun) as well as a special cheesecake (known as game¯lios or kreion) served as the most common types. At funerals and other commemorations of the dead, they offered honey cakes to the spirits of the deceased; Greeks believed that the guardian creature of the afterlife, the three-headed dog Cerberus, was especially fond of such treats, having been bribed with them by Heracles during one of his adventures. Indeed, Heracles himself showed a distinct fondness for melitoutta, and so, since it had been fit for such a great hero, the Greeks considered it fit for any average person who sought to meet the challenges of life and death. Moreover, the gods themselves welcomed offerings of cakes (nastoi, ompnai), as did their ceremonial pets (like Athena’s sacred serpent on the Acropolis at Athens). Besides cakes, the ancient Greeks made still other pastries for dessert. These included such confections as barley scones (maziskai) and sweet candies of roasted and rolled sesame seed (troˉkta se¯samou). They also ate a lot of fruits for dessert, which they called troˉgalia. When in season, these included pears, apples, pomegranates, grapes, plums, and figs. When fresh fruit was not available, the ancient Greeks consumed a lot of dried figs, dates, and raisins. Sometimes they even pressed preserved figs, grapes, and olives into a dessert cake called the palathe¯. They also collected wild fruits for dessert, such as myrtle berries (myrta), which the philosopher Plato appears to have favored. In addition, the Greeks enjoyed eating nuts, especially almonds and walnuts, fresh or dried, as part of dessert. In fact, they mixed figs and almonds together to create a confection known as ischadokaryon. They also made a sort of pie known as the koptoplakous with crushed roasted hazelnuts and almonds together with crushed dried fruits and honey. All these ingredients were mixed into a paste and layered atop a crust of crushed sesame mixed with honey. Like their modern descendants, the ancient Greeks also liked to include legumes in their dessert menus. Hence, many ate roasted chickpeas (erebinthoi), and the Spartans ate fresh beans (loboi) together with dried figs to finish off their meals. So, the ancient Greeks certainly had a fondness for desserts. The natural environment and their own agricultural pursuits provided them with a variety and an abundance of sweets, as they would have defined them, to enjoy.

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See also: Arts: Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Cooking; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Hospitality; Meals; Wine; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Fraser, H. M. 1951. Beekeeping in Antiquity. 2nd ed. London: University of London Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

DRUNKENNESS The ancient Greeks had quite a variety of ways to express the state of drunkenness (exoinia, methuple¯x, methusis, oinobare¯s, oinople¯x, oinophlugia, thoˉre¯xis). Intoxication from wine was an expected feature of everyday life for adult Greek men, since they typically engaged in considerable drinking during and after dinner. Yet to be a habitual drunkard (methuste¯s, methucharybdis, chalimas) or one addicted to wine ( paroinikos) was frowned upon in most Greek communities. Ancient Greek men and women did not drink beer, which they considered fit only for barbarians, and had no distilled spirits. They did consume wine, indeed from childhood onward, though typically in a watered-down version (three parts of water for one part of wine, for instance). They regarded wine as a gift from the god Dionysus, a gift that lightened the burdens of their hard lives. Drinking wine in large enough quantities to bring on heavy intoxication served as one of the essential features in the culture of elite ancient Greek males going back at least as far as Homeric times. Among other classes of society, men drank heavily at the after-dinner parties known as symposia. People had no problem with such men becoming loud and boisterous and pouring out into the streets when a symposion ended; they paraded to their homes in what was called the koˉmos, singing and dancing along the way, driven by their inebriation and sense of camaraderie.

Food and Drink: Drunkenness

Group drunkenness, then, had its place in Greek society, within ritualized parameters and among men only; female drunkenness was considered an invitation to lascivious behavior unacceptable among citizen women (though such drinking was not forbidden to courtesans and prostitutes, unsurprisingly, who were either resident aliens or slaves). The lone male drunk acquired as bad a reputation as female drunks whether alone or in a group. In the Iliad, the hero Achilles insulted Agamemnon by calling him “heavy with wine,” a sign not only of the latter’s self-indulgence and lack of self-control but also of his recklessness, all of which constituted a danger to his troops and their mission. The scientist Pliny described the Athenian general Alcibiades as drinking on an empty stomach and even before meals, both of which would have been regarded as immoderate and improper. The ancient Greeks, thus, strongly disapproved of the effects of drunkenness on the individual alone or even on groups of individuals heavily drinking in the “wrong” circumstances. The poet Hesiod, for instance, told of how the hero Orion was blinded in punishment for his drunken assault on the goddess Merope. In the Odyssey, Homer described drunken men as swimming in their own tears, that is, literally unable to see clearly (and, therefore, seriously impaired under dangerous conditions), and showed without a doubt the fatal mistakes possible when besotted with wine. Elpenor, for example, broke his neck falling from the roof of Circe’s house in a drunken stupor from “measureless wine.” The suitors for Penelope’s hand became incredibly drunk and thereby careless, certainly making it easier for the returning Odysseus to avenge himself upon them all. Such stories served as lessons to generations of later Greeks in the bad behavior brought on by excessive drink. Furthermore, drunkenness was associated with barbarism, both in legend and in history. The Cyclops Polyphemus, for example, represented barbarism in part because he could not hold his liquor, consuming three cups full of wine neat and in quick succession (something impermissible at a symposion). No wonder he engaged in acts of savagery as no civilized Greek should do. Greek mythology portrayed beasts, like the half-man, half-horse centaurs, as terrible drunkards. The centaur Eurytion infamously became so intoxicated at wedding festivities among the Lapiths that he attempted to rape the bride and thereby incited a bloody conflict between centaurs and humans. In historical terms, the Scythians of the steppes of Ukraine and southern Russia were said to drink their wine neat, something which they taught to the Spartan king, Cleomenes I, who allegedly went mad from continually doing so and eventually killed himself! No civilized Greek sought to behave in such ways, if he could avoid it, except apparently the Macedonian warriors, who drank unmixed wine (akratos) deliberately to become quickly and heavily intoxicated. According to the gourmand Athenaeus, Macedonians regularly became wildly drunk before the first course was

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even over, preventing them from enjoying the rest of the meal. Many Greeks saw them as imitating the heroes of legend in this way, as the Macedonians themselves claimed, but most classed the Macedonians as barbaric or semi-barbaric because of such customs. Not surprisingly, famous Macedonians, like King Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, or Demetrius Poliorcetes and Antiochus IV, went down in history as notorious alcoholics (though there was no precise term for this), and they may well have been. Still, in ancient Greek society, one’s political and social rivals might utilize such accusations of habitual drunkenness, sometimes true, sometimes not, in an attempt to discredit you. Athenian generals like Cimon and Alcibiades, politicians like Cleon, and even philosophers like Socrates, had such accusations hurled at them, as did Dionysius II of Syracuse. Aristotelian philosophers asserted that Alcaeus, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes, famous poets and playwrights, had the reputation of being drunk while composing their works. Indeed, entire populations, such as the Argives, Boeotians, Tarentines, and Byzantines, faced similar accusations that might have been nothing more than character assassination. Modern scholarship cannot always discover the truth in these cases. According to the biographer and philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea, ancient Greek leaders attempted to legislate against drunkenness as far back as the sixth century BCE. Pittacus of Mytilene, for example, in that time decreed as part of his reforms that crimes committed by drunks would incur twice the penalty as those same crimes committed by sober individuals; his decision even became a popular proverb across Greece. The Locrians of southern Italy had an ancient law punishing with death anyone who drank unmixed wine without express medical prescription. The Spartans as a whole apparently prohibited symposia, and any one of them would quickly and severely punish any drunk caught in the streets of their community. Cases of violent crime arising from drunkenness were not unheard of in Greek communities. At Athens, for instance, the fourth-century BCE orator Demosthenes wrote a courtroom speech for Ariston, a man who prosecuted fellow citizens on charges of assault and robbery. The principal defendant, Conon, had a habit of heavy drinking, which the plaintiff had witnessed firsthand every afternoon when they were on garrison duty together; in fact, Conon and his fellow drinkers assaulted the plaintiff and his unit even under those circumstances, despite warnings from their commanding officer. After they had served out their stint and were back in town, Conon, his sons, and some of their friends, following an overly indulgent symposion, jumped Ariston in the streets, beat him half to death, and robbed him. They literally crowed over his prostrate body! Unfortunately, we have no record of the court’s decision in this case.

Food and Drink: Drunkenness

The most famous, or rather infamous, crimes brought about by drunkenness in ancient Greek history were certainly the murder of general Cleitus by Alexander the Great and the latter’s order for the execution of his own publicist, Callisthenes. Both of these resulted from Alexander’s drunken rages. Alexander’s intemperate drinking had been a topic of discussion between him and the philosopher Androcydes. The latter had attempted to curb the Macedonian’s excesses, urging Alexander in letters to consider wine as a poison. This sort of call to temperance was not anything new in Greek society. Hesiod had called someone who drank too much a slave whose tongue, hands, feet, and even wits became enchained. The Middle Comedy poet Alexis had one of his characters ask if drunkenness was not the greatest of evils, while the Spartan king Agesilaus advised people to shun drunkenness as they did madness. Several schools of ancient Greek philosophy advocated abstention from wine, especially as they associated overdrinking with licentious behavior and irrationality. The Pythagoreans, for instance, regarded drunkenness as the first step toward insanity. Aristotle wrote an entire essay on the deleterious effects of drunkenness. His master, Plato, asserted that the ideal state should imitate the Spartans and forbid drinking, and not follow the example of the Scythians, Celts, or any other peoples who indulged in drunkenness, because drinking impairs the judgments of reason and thus interferes with all just conduct. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said one should drink wine only at set times, in moderation and with discretion, with the goal of practicing to achieve complete temperance. Plutarch castigated habitual drunkards and urged his readers to drink water instead of indulging in wine! Plato wrote of men who looked for any excuse to drink any sort of wine at any time of day, certainly what modern medicine would recognize as alcoholics, and the ancient Greeks in general understood well the physical effects of drunkenness (like giddiness, agitation, lack of balance), its physical aftereffects (like headache and nausea), and the physical remedies for it (especially sleeping it off, but also such things as acorn tea). Yet its psychological and moral effects concerned them the most. Greeks said that excessive drink made men rage like lions, bulls, or leopards, the totemic traits of Dionysus. It made people foolish or lazy, like the old drunk women depicted in Hellenistic stories and art, or caused people to indulge in sexual excess or other forms of misconduct. It encouraged people to keep the company of spendthrifts and other wastrels rather than men who regulated their lives well. Plutarch summed it up best perhaps by writing that drunkenness at once revealed one’s character and altered one’s personality to one’s detriment. The gift of wine thus became a curse to those who did not or could not use it rightly.

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See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Homosexuality; Men; Sexuality; Women; Food and Drink: Hospitality; Meals; Poisons and Toxic Foods; Wine; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Leisure Activities; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Pythagoreans FURTHER READING Austin, G. A. 1985. Alcohol in Western Society from Antiquity to 1800. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Dalby, A. 1996. Sirens Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Donlan, W. 1980. The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece. Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murray, O., ed. 1990. Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Starr, C. G. 1992. The Aristocratic Temper of Greek Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

EGGS. See POULTRY, BIRDS, AND EGGS FAMINE AND FOOD SUPPLY Food shortages (sitodeia, endeia, chreia), which almost always meant shortages of grain, especially wheat, and sometimes olive oil, appear to have been common in the world of the ancient Greeks, whereas famine (limos) was relatively rare. Both tended to have the same sorts of causes, however, whether natural (such as droughts, crop failures, diseases, pests) or manmade (hoarding, speculation, inflated prices, piracy, wars). Modern students should keep in mind how often the ancient Greeks went to war with one another over land. A primary cause of these wars was neither glory

Food and Drink: Famine and Food Supply

nor honor, but the need for good agricultural land in which the staple crops, especially grain, could be cultivated; hunger for such land was a perennial problem for those who lived in the relatively barren or the very rugged regions of the Greek territories. Ancient Greeks living in mainland Greece and the Aegean Islands experienced wide variations in agricultural productivity. Essential differences in quality of the soil factored in here, but so did the range of microclimates across the Greek region, with alternating periods of warmer/drier and colder/damper weather, great variability in rainfall from year to year, problems with rapid runoff on steep terrain, as well as the hazards of strong winds and hailstorms in winter and torrential rainfall and windstorms (today called sirocco or meltemi) in summer. Limitations of terrain and weather conditions encouraged larger-scale cultivation in northern Greece and much smaller-scale in southern Greece, where more frequent droughts meant more crop failures. These factors combined with the pressures of overpopulation across the Greek territories to drive the colonization movement of the Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE) and the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), compelling thousands of southern Greeks and Greek islanders to leave their homelands for places in Italy, Sicily, or the Black Sea coasts where more and better farmland was available for settlement. Despite this relieving of pressure on the food supply of mainland Greece and the islands of the Aegean, and despite the ancient Greek devotion to self-sufficiency that encouraged most communities not to exceed in demand what their territory could supply, a number of locales still suffered from shortage of cereals in the Classical Age (490–323 BCE); such places officially organized the importation of large quantities of grain from outside their region. For instance, the Greeks of Arcadia, the rugged highland district in the central-northern Peloponnese, produced a lot of meat and cheese from their herds of sheep and goats but possessed very little good farmland. So, they traded their surpluses in meat and cheese to buy grain from the lowland portions of the Peloponnese (which, consequently, drew the Arcadians into the political and military quarrels of the rest of the peninsula). Even the lowland Peloponnesians were not immune to shortages of grain, however. The city-state of Argos, for example, despite controlling the rich farmlands of the Argolid in the northeastern Peloponnese, still found it necessary to import large amounts of grain from the Greek colony of Cyrene in eastern Libya, as did the nearby commercial powerhouse of Corinth, which had much less good farmland than Argos. Thus, these communities in southern Greece faced challenges similar to the city-state of Athens. Despite Athenian productivity in terms of such things as livestock, honey, vegetables, olives, and wine, the unusually large population in Athens (over 100,000) depended on imports of cereals from abroad. Not only did the

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Athenians purchase grain from nearby Boeotia (grain surpluses from there being ferried by sea to Athens because they cost more to transport by land!) and from Cyrene but also from various Greek colonies in the Black Sea region and from as far away as the fields of Scythia (modern-day Ukraine and Russia). To maintain a stable supply of grain, the polis of Athens, by law, claimed twothirds of all cereals imported into its territory. For anyone living in Athens to buy and sell grain on the open market was punishable by execution; special commissioners of the Athenian government, the sitophylakes, or grain guardians, enforced these regulations very strictly. A few other poleis, including Cos, Rhodes, and Tauromenium, also had at their disposal similar governmental instruments and legal mechanisms to protect, enhance, and enforce the public’s food supply. In the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans came to understand the significance to their Athenian enemies of the imported grain from the Black Sea region; they could bring the latter to their knees by cutting off that supply. Using the Perso-Peloponnesian fleet, Sparta’s navarchs, especially Lysander, took up the mission of doing so. In 404 BCE, the Athenians, gripped by serious famine as a result of various Peloponnesian blockading efforts, were more than willing to negotiate peace and soon surrendered to the Spartans. Even though the Athenian government long intervened to ensure the presence of grain in the community, it never provided free food to those in need; instead, it regulated the price of grain within the marketplace, working to keep such prices stable and relatively low. Greek city-states did apparently sometimes adopt a policy of a grain dole, providing free grain to all its citizens as the Romans would do during the Late Republic and under the Emperors. The island of Samos in the eastern Aegean did so at least once in its recorded history, for instance. When it came to famines, those for which the ancients left records seem to have been concentrated in Attica, the Peloponnese, and the Cyclades Islands. Most famines were localized, but there were also widespread cases, such as the famine of 328 BCE. Famines were frequently associated with severe droughts (often blamed on divine anger) and consequent reduction in agricultural output at the local level, but the most well-known resulted from siege warfare (such as the famine at Plataea caused by the combined Boeotian-Peloponnesian siege of the city in 427 BCE; the famines at Potidaea, on Melos, and on Chios caused by the Athenian sieges of those places, respectively in 430, 416, and 412 BCE; or the famine in Athens caused by the Spartan blockade in 405–404 BCE). Ancient Greek individuals and communities prepared for the possibility of famine through the widely engaged in practice of storing grain and other preserved foods. They responded to actual famines by shifting more resources into animal husbandry, engaging in more diversified agriculture (which was already a norm of many communities in any case), and limiting exports of grains. Greek states

Food and Drink: Famine and Food Supply

confiscated temple stores of agricultural first fruits dedicated to the gods and sold them off for the benefit of a starving populace. Individuals and communities also took out loans to buy grain at low or no interest; local and even foreign benefactors took steps to guarantee supplies of staple foods like grain and olive oil, for which they received various public honors. Indeed, the wealthier members of Greek communities often made a name for themselves by providing relief supplies in quick order for their fellow citizens. Not surprisingly, most food shortage “scares” as well as actual famines in the ancient Greek world were reported for urban centers, which depended on food brought in from the countryside and from abroad. Those who lived in the countryside could often more easily cope with such troubles by doing more hunting, fishing, and especially gathering plants in the wild. Indeed, rural Greeks might even benefit financially from shortages by charging higher prices to their urban cousins for their coveted produce. Ancient writers were perfectly aware of the factors, including variations in soil and climate, that contributed to the variety and abundance of, as well as to the frequent scarcities in, the Mediterranean food supply. Perhaps the greatest single asset that most often averted food shortages and especially famines in the ancient Greek world was the multifaceted nature of their agriculture. Most communities found relief from disaster relatively close by thanks to their typical efforts at not living beyond their means and diversifying their agricultural cultivation to make sure there was always something on hand to sustain life. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Fishing; Landownership; Piracy and Banditry; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Trade; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Death and Dying; Food and Drink: Bread; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Olives and Olive Oil; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Country Life; Health and Illness; Marketplaces; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Siege Technology; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge.

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FEASTS AND BANQUETS The ancient Greeks placed very high value on sharing meals together in the form of smaller-scale banquets and larger-scale feasts. Such events, held on a regular basis, demonstrated and validated ties of family, friendship, camaraderie, common purpose, and belonging to the community. Banquets (called by many names, including thoinai, sundeipna, deipna) in the ancient Greek world can be divided into four main types: those hosted by private individuals for their own purposes, those hosted by private individuals as part of their service to the public (leitourgia), those hosted by associations, and those hosted by the state for select guests. One example of a privately hosted banquet was the meal held at weddings. At Athens, for example, the bride’s father or guardian provided a private banquet for invited guests to celebrate the completion of formalities in the wedding ceremony. Among the foods eaten were especially those associated with fertility or possessing fertilizing qualities, like the quince (me¯lea Kydonia) consumed by the bride or the sesame cakes (se¯sama) of which all the guests made sure to partake. Only after the wedding banquet could the couple be escorted in procession to their new home and consummate their marriage. Private individuals also hosted meals for their friends and relations on special occasions during the year. For instance, young Athenian men got together for private banquets on the seventh day of each month, which was considered sacred to the god Apollo, himself a sort of patron of youths.

Food and Drink: Feasts and Banquets

Funerary marker, or stele, depicting a banquet scene in the home of an Athenian warrior, c. 480–450 BCE. The deceased soldier reclines on his dining couch (which could also be interpreted as his funeral bier) awaiting water or wine from his servant (left) in order to make a libation. His faithful dog noses around under the couch, and his wife sits on a chair to his right, apparently engaged in weaving, a traditional pastime of Athenian women. (Ahmet Ihsan Ariturk/Dreamstime.com)

An example of a privately hosted banquet required by liturgical service can be found at Athens during the City Dionysia. The annual liturgy of the chore¯gia required its holder to provide a formal meal for the cast and crew of the successful theatrical production that he had funded for performance at the festival. Associations of artisans (synergasiai), musicians and actors (Dionysiakoi technitai), members of political clubs (hetaireiai), phratries, and other such groups also held banquets on a regular schedule. Sometimes their meals were provided by just one of the members, say an officer, or by a benefactor, but often each member contributed something (symbolai), making such banquets similar to the modern potluck. Detailed regulations for some of these associations survive and they reveal the critical importance of participating in banquets to the identity and continued good standing of their members. Associations of religious devotees (thiasoi) were the most prevalent in the Greek communities. Scholars believe that the Eleusinian Mysteries held each fall at the Telesterion of Eleusis (near the northwestern edge of Athenian territory) included a banquet or common meal for those initiated into the secret rites of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. The philosopher Plato organized his philosophical school near the sacred shrine of the hero Academus and dedicated it legally as a thiasos; certainly, communal banquets were a key feature of this socalled Platonic Academy.

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Eating at a community’s prytaneion (the dining hall for public officials) could also be seen as a sort of formal banqueting, even though the fare served, according to ancient Greek sources, tended to be of a simple kind. Greek communities not only compensated their leaders by supplying them with a common meal each day but also invited honored guests from abroad, such as ambassadors, to join them. Moreover, particular citizens shared in the simple banquets of the prytaneion for a lifetime in recognition of their conspicuous service to the community. At Athens, such honorees included the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton (the two men who, according to local tradition, had “liberated” Athens from tyranny in the sixth century BCE) and Athenian victors in the Panhellenic Games. Orphaned children of fallen Athenian military personnel also earned the temporary privilege of banqueting at the prytaneion. A simpler, and more rigid, form of state-sponsored banquet was the tradition of syssitia or phiditia as the Spartans called it. All Spartan adult males lived apart from their families in barracks where they ate together each day with men of their own military unit. Moreover, the individuals of each phidition or syssition were required to contribute a fixed portion of foodstuffs from their agricultural land to supply these common meals. Such suppers consisted of a serving of meat (usually boiled pork), black broth (made of pork, pig’s blood, and a few other ingredients), barley bread, barley meal steeped in olive oil, cheese, olives, figs, and wine, and sometimes the spoils of hunting or fishing (served separately or mixed together in a sort of stew). Every sort of banquet had its own etiquette and sometimes particular persons were assigned the task of maintaining good manners among the guests. There were also typically differences among the guests in terms of treatment. Honored guests often received more or better food than others, for example, or dined closer to the host. Banquets also had their share of uninvited guests and parasitic guests (  parasitoi, kolakes), as described in Greek literature and mocked in Greek comedies. Some communities, like the island of Mykonos, had the reputation of being places where anyone might just show up for a banquet! Ancient Greek banquets varied widely in their luxuriousness. Spartan banquets were regarded as the most incredibly spare, and typically praised for it, whereas banquets at Sybaris (a city-state in southern Italy) had the reputation of tremendous sumptuousness, and were often criticized for it. Even a relatively simple banquet at Athens, according to the historian Xenophon, might include delicate additions, such as perfumes and ointments of rose oil or clove oil to anoint the heads and feet of the guests (to make them smell nice in the close quarters of ancient dining rooms!). In Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), though, opulent banquets became more common and more fashionable, the tone set for them by the powerful monarchs and other wealthy patrons of the era.

Food and Drink: Feasts and Banquets

Despite examples from Greek mythology, as in the tales of the gods on Olympus or of the godlike Phaeacians who entertained Odysseus, seldom were respectable Greek women allowed to attend the sorts of banquets described above, even when they were held in their own homes; such banquets took place in the androˉn, the men’s section of the residence. Women would have been included, though, in some of the religious associations, like the Eleusinian initiates. The Greek communities in southern Italy provided an exception to this. At Sybaris, for instance, women attended private banquets, protected in this right even by law. Not surprisingly, Greeks elsewhere found this appalling and credited the practice to the “loose” lifestyle of their cousins in Magna Graecia. Feasts in the ancient Greek world (again, called by many names, including hestiaseis or daites) can be divided into two main types: those hosted by private citizens as part of a liturgy and those funded by the community as a whole to honor the gods. The ten tribes of Athens held regular outdoor feasts, for example, provided by their respective hestiatoˉres as a form of liturgy. Each hestiatoˉr would have needed to provide food and drink for perhaps thousands of men who showed up for this meal. Religious festivals, which formed such an integral and frequent part of the calendar in all ancient Greek communities, typically included a great feast for the citizens or at least for a segment of them. In this way, they shared a banquet with the divine. The Eleusinian Festival noted above, for example, not only included the special meal for the initiates into the mysteries but also a larger feast for all those hundreds or thousands of people who had made the long pilgrimage to Eleusis. Most religious feasts were open to citizens only, though there were some that included visitors from abroad or resident aliens as well. For instance, the Spartans offered visitors to join them in the open-air tents of their feast in honor of the goddess Artemis. This sort of feast, called kopis, consisted of roasted goat or suckling pig, little breads, oil and honey cakes, cheese, and black pudding, sometimes vegetables or soups, and figs and beans, as well as warmed wine. Occasions not only for eating together but also for listening to music together, watching dancers and other entertainers together, and conversing together, banquets and feasts cemented the relationships of individuals, groups, and entire communities in the ancient Greek world. Throughout their history, the Greeks took great pride and satisfaction in such shared meals as an integral feature of their cultural identity. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Philosophy, Plato; Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Fishing; Landownership; Family and Gender: Burial; Men; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings;

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Women; Fashion and Appearance: Cosmetics; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Dessert; Drunkenness; Famine and Food Supply; Fruits and Nuts; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Wine; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Country Life; Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Diplomacy; Hoplite Soldiers; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Panhellenic Games; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2002. Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices. London: British Museum Press. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. New York: Ayer. Detienne, M. 1994. The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Detienne, M., and J. P. Vernant. 1989. The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Translated by P. Wissing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Finley, M. I. 1972. The World of Odysseus. 2nd ed. London and New York: Penguin. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harland, P. 2003. Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming A Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Herman, G. 1978. Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kloppenborg, J. S., and S. G. Wilson, eds. 1996. Voluntary Associations in the GrecoRoman World. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, S. G. 1978. The Prytaneion: Its Function and Architectural Form. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Murray, O., ed. 1990. Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Food and Drink: Fruits and Nuts Slater, W. J., ed. 1991. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

FOOD SUPPLY. See FAMINE AND FOOD SUPPLY FRUITS AND NUTS The ancient Greeks collected all sorts of fruits (karpoi) and nuts (karya) produced by trees, bushes, and vines. Some of these they harvested in the wild, others they gathered from their farms. In either case, fruits and nuts served as important sources of vitamins and minerals for the Greeks, key supplements to their basic diet of grains. The most commonly eaten fruits in the world of the ancient Greeks included the apple (me¯lon), fig (called sykon when farm fresh, ischas when dried, erina when gathered in the wild), grape (staphule¯, botrus), pomegranate (rhoa, kokkos), pear (onchne¯, apion), and some sort of prickly pear (kaktos). In addition, they consumed all sorts of berries (rhagoi), especially myrtle berry (myrton), reddish mulberries (habruna), black mulberry (moron), white mulberry (sukaminon), raspberry (batos Idaia), blackberry (baton, moron), and strawberries (mimaikula when farmed, andrachne¯ when gathered in the wild). Many of these fruits had originally come to the Greeks from the Ancient Near East, but most if not all were grown in Greek territories by the Classical Age (490–323 BCE). By Late Classical times, lemons or “Median apples” (me¯la Me¯dika, me¯la kitria, me¯lokitria) were known in Greece, having been imported from the Persian Empire, as well as watermelons (  pepontes), which had arrived from Northeastern Africa. Greeks of the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) ate apricots (berikokka), cherries (kerasia), dates (  phoinikes), peaches (me¯la Persika), plums (damake¯na, kokkume¯la), quinces (me¯la Kydonia, kodymala, melokydoˉnia), citrons (kitra), and muskmelons (me¯lopepontes), all originally imported from the East. Various locales in the ancient Greek world acquired reputations for their good fruit. The sacred center of Delphi in central Greece produced some of the best apples, for instance, as the wider region of Boeotia did in terms of pomegranates. The big island of Euboea was known for its pears, fruits relished by Greeks since as far back as the tales of Homer. Erythrae in western Anatolia and the island of Lesbos to the north produced some of the finest table grapes, while the island

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of Rhodes exported some of the finest raisins, and the territory of Miletus in western Anatolia abounded in cherries. The Greeks consumed fruit in a multitude of ways. They liked to dry their grapes, that is, to make raisins (astaphides), and use these as a seasoning in different cooked dishes rather than eating them raw; table grapes were preferred the latter way. They stuffed fish with mulberries and fowl with myrtle berries; the latter were recommended by ascetic philosophers and physicians as a particularly healthy food to live on. They ate a lot of fresh apples, but still considered fresh pears, Terracotta mixing bowl, or krate¯r, attributed to the both wild and domesticated, more Orchard Painter, c. 460 BCE. A group of Athenian digestible; sometimes they served women gather apples, placing them in wicker baskets. Greek artists and their patrons had a great pears floating in cool water to fondness for such rural images associated with reveal their ripeness. Greek medharvesting fruits and nuts, which Greek culture ical writers asserted that peaches regarded as the almost-magical nourishers of life. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1907) were more nutritious than both apples and pears and suggested the eating of dates when one wanted to feel full; the Greeks also understood the diuretic properties of dates and stewed plums. Generally, they enjoyed eating their fruit when fresh and in season but also turned to preserving apples, dates, cherries, even raisins in grape juice, honey, or wine or pickling them in salt brine or vinegar. Certainly among all the fruits, the most important for eating raw, preserved, or cooked, or for utilizing in recipes, was the fig. The domesticated fig tree dates back to around 10,000 BCE, and both wild and domesticated varieties grow from crevices in the very rocks themselves in Greece today; it was no different in ancient times. The Anatolian regions of Phrygia and Caria and the island of Rhodes earned fame for their dried figs, as Attica did for its raw figs. Figs ranged in color from white to red to black and the Greeks named figs for the regions from which they came, such as the Megarian, Lacedaemonian, and so on. The Greeks ate fresh figs anytime between late summer and early winter (since their trees, depending on the variety and region, could produce double or triple

Food and Drink: Fruits and Nuts

crops in one year), or roasted them, or made cakes of pressed figs and olives, or marinated meat in fig juice and vinegar. Fish cooked with figs seems to have been a particularly popular dish. Medical writers advised parents to give their children fig juice from an early age, as it was considered good for their healthy growth; it was also suggested for those who suffered from poor digestion and bowel problems. Greek military forces on the march typically carried a supply of figs with them. Figs provided not only natural sugar, especially when dried, but also dietary fiber, vitamins, and carbohydrates; they thus served as an all-purpose energy food in the Greek diet, consumed as a snack and as part of dessert. No wonder, then, that philosophers heralded figs as one of their “ascetic” foods, even when many upperclass Greeks scoffed at figs, especially dried figs, as the food of peasants and slaves. The ancient Greek territories produced a variety of nuts, including almonds (amugdalai), chestnuts (balanoi, kastana), and pine nuts (  pituides). In addition, the Greeks imported hazelnuts from the Black Sea region, calling them karya Pontika, or Pontic nuts, and walnuts from the Persian realm, calling them karya Persika, or Persian nuts; these names continued in use even after the Greeks learned to plant in their own territories the trees from which these nuts were harvested. Pistachios (  pistakia) originally came to the Greeks from Syria and Arabia in the late Hellenistic Era, during which time pistachio trees also began to be grown by Greek farmers. Most of these nuts were consumed as snack food during and outside of meals. They were often paired with cheese and honey, especially at dessert. Almonds enjoyed the greatest popularity, particularly those produced on the islands of Naxos and Cyprus and in the region of Paphlagonia in modern-day Turkey; almonds were eaten raw, roasted, or soaked in water. Ancient Greek diners considered almondeating a spark to one’s drinking appetite, so they were often a key feature of symposia, that is, after-dinner drinking parties. Greek medical writers understood, however, that serious digestive problems could result from not first roasting or boiling almonds (and, in fact, some other nuts as well) before eating them; in other words, they had some basic insight into allergic reactions to nuts. The ancient Greeks also made use of nuts in other ways. For instance, they extracted oil as a condiment or ingredient for recipes from almonds and especially from walnuts, which were considered less edible. In addition to eating chestnuts, usually roasted, they also ground them into flour used in baking. At least as far back as the poet Homer, the Greeks appear to have been fascinated by orchards, like that of the legendary King Alcinous of Phaeacia, filled with fig, pear, apple, and pomegranate trees; grape vines, of course, also figure largely in the landscape of mythical Greece. The Greek stories reflect the reality of historical Greece, with its sometimes very ornamental orchards containing fruit- and nut-bearing plants surrounded by rows of olive trees.

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Despite the largely affected prejudice against fruits and nuts among the Greek elite, one would have found dealers in figs, for instance, in just about every Greek community and seen berry pickers across the Greek countryside. Without fruits and nuts, the average Greek farmer or artisan would not have had the caloric energy and the nutrients to do their jobs. And, after all, even King Philip II of Macedon and his famous son Alexander loved their apples! See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Grains; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Wine; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Leisure Activities; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Medicine FURTHER READING Alcock, J. P. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Isager, S., and J. E. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture. London and New York: Routledge. Meiggs, R. 1984. Trees and Timber in the Ancient World. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

GRAINS No food source mattered more to the ancient Greeks in terms of nutrition as well as culture than grains (sitos). They cultivated a number of different grains,

Food and Drink: Grains

primarily wheat and barley, and made use of them in offerings to the gods and to the deceased, in medicinal concoctions, and in food preparation for themselves and for their beasts of burden. Wheat (  pyros) was the preferred grain among the Greeks and they grew several kinds of it. Hulled wheats (those in which the edible grain is protected by inedible outer shells or hulls that cannot be threshed free from the chaff or husks) consisted primarily of emmer and spelt. The Greeks always associated emmer (zeia) with the cultures of the Ancient Near East, especially Egypt, from which its cultivation spread into other parts of the Mediterranean; spelt (zeia, olyra, tiphe¯) had been part of Greek agriculture since earliest times and so they gave credit to their own goddess Demeter for its use. Planted in the springtime, these grains were quite resistant to insect infestation and were resilient enough to be stored for long periods of time, under dry conditions. Greeks threshed, pounded with mortar and pestle, and sometimes toasted emmer and spelt to release the edible grains, which they could then boil to make porridge. They also milled these grains to make a kind of flour (stais) for the baking of bread or cakes (staite¯ia). Additionally, they sprinkled grains of spelt on sacrificial victims. Among the varieties of wheat, the Greeks ate mostly durum (to which their word pyros usually referred). A naked grain (that is, easier to remove from its husk), and generally producing much better and milder flavor when processed than other wheats or other grains, such “hard” wheat gained the supreme reputation among cereals Yet, since such wheat was slower to mature and harder to grow in the relatively arid climate and thin soils of mainland Greece, and prone to destruction by many more pests, it was also harder to come by for the average Greek than the more prolific and heartier barley. Indeed, for most communities, pyros of the durum kind would have been regarded as the food of the elite, except in those cases, like that of fifth-century BCE Athens, where extensive trade brought an adequate supply of durum from the Greek farmers of Sicily and southern Italy. The Athenians also imported soft or summer wheat (a variety of pyros sown in autumn and harvested in late spring/early summer) in large enough quantities to make it, too, a staple food; it came from the colder and wetter shores of the faraway Black Sea and was preferred in bread making, when available. After threshing, the Greeks boiled cracked wheat to make porridge or grits (chidra, chondroi) or pounded and ground wheat kernels to make flour (aleiata, aleura, semidalis) for baking; tragoptisane¯ was the name of a particular sort of gruel made by combining wheat, spelt, and other cereals. Communities had professional wheat dealers (  pyropoˉlai) and some, like Athens, had public officials (sitophylakes) who guarded and monitored the wheat supply. The ancients believed that barley (krithe¯), another hulled grain, was less nutritious than wheat, primarily because it did not taste as good. Nevertheless, barley

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served as a significant component in the ancient Greek diet. Since barley was easier to produce than the various varieties of wheat, this grain remained the most plentiful and, hence, the least expensive to purchase. The Greeks grew many varieties, including a winter variety and a spring variety; the vast majority of cereal production in Attica consisted of barley, as also in Messenia, Laconia, and Arcadia, on the Greek islands and in Asia Minor; the ancient botanist Theophrastus speaks much about it, and the biographer Plutarch indicates, as do other sources, its widespread use in religious rituals—we think of the many references to the offering of barley cakes (mazai) to the gods. As in the case of wheat, Greek communities saw professional barley dealers (krithopoˉlai) and some had officials (krithophylakes) charged with protecting the barley supply. Although the Spartans might have been most famous for being “barley eaters,” the Athenian reformer Solon insisted that brides in his community carry barley roasters (  phrygetra) in their wedding ceremonies to symbolize their entry into the domestic duties of married life. Indeed, all the Greeks consumed lots of barley in many ways. In addition to the barley meal (finer alphita or whole-grain oulai) utilized in sacrificial rituals, they cooked coarsely cracked barley groats (epikis) and pearled barley (alphiton), made barley broth (epikta), barley gruel (“strained,” chylos or “unstrained,” ptisane¯), thick barley soup (krithaia), and porridges of barley and cheese (  pasta) or of barley meal and wine (oinoutta). They baked barley scones (maziskai) and a whole array of specialty barley cakes (thumele¯, phuste¯, psaista), as well as barley bread (maza). Moreover, even though the Greeks dismissed as “barbaric” those cultures that brewed beer, they, too, made fermented beverages (brutos, bruton, pinon, or oinos ek krithoˉn) from barley. Millet (kenchros, elumos, meline¯) and rye (olyra, briza) were minor grains in the ancient Greek diet. Rye, cultivated and consumed mainly in Macedon, thereby earned the reputation of being a “barbaric” grain, while millet, cultivated more widely in wetter regions of the Greek world (planted in late winter/early spring and harvested in the summertime), provided very high yields and its hard, round seeds came to be used by many Greeks to make bread, porridge, and millet soup (kenchrine¯). The Greeks were also familiar with oats (aigiloˉps, bromos), especially where it was grown in Asia Minor. Most considered it fit only for “barbarians,” not even good enough as fodder for livestock. Perhaps three-fourths of the ancient Greek diet consisted of grains. The Greeks certainly put a lot of effort into preparing them for food, through labor-intensive processes like husking, parching, pounding, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, boiling, and roasting. The lower classes seem to have eaten more sitos than the wealthy, who could afford a more varied diet, but even the latter rarely took a meal without it. Porridge and bread made of grain were two of the staple foods, eaten on

Food and Drink: Hospitality

a daily basis. Carbohydrates in grain provided most of the calories in the ancient Greek diet, as well as much of the iron and protein. Certainly, Greeks of all classes would have agreed with the fifth-century BCE historian Herodotus who called wheat and barley the markers of a civilized people. See also: Arts: Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Landownership; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Food and Drink: Bread; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Hospitality; Legumes; Meals; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Soups and Stews; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Machines; Medicine FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Moritz, L. A. 1958. Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

HOSPITALITY According to ancient Greek tradition, the highest of all the Olympian gods, Zeus himself, protected guests (xenoi) and watched over human customs of hospitality (xenia). The Greeks treated such customs in a ritualistic fashion, as if they were engaging in acts of veneration or worship aimed at the divine. The ultimate purpose of hospitality was to treat fellow citizens as though they were kin and to treat foreigners as though they were fellow citizens.

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Hospitality took the form of either offering someone a bit of food (bread, cheese, fruits, nuts, appetizers, or wine) when they arrived at one’s home or of inviting them to dine together. The link between xenia and sharing in a meal, however small, was summed up by the philosopher Aristotle, who described those who enjoyed long-term bonds of reciprocal hospitality with one another as “eating salt together”; this is a clear expression of what modern Christians would call sharing “table fellowship.” Hosts achieved great repute with the style and scale of the meals they served to guests and particularly by keeping the wine flowing for their guests. In addition to sharing their table in the most generous way possible, hosts further solemnized the bonds with their guests by providing the latter with a place to bathe or sleep and through symbolic gestures, especially hand-shaking, gift-giving, and pledging one another with libations of wine. Guests thus honored returned in kind this hospitality when the opportunity arose. Those who shared such reciprocal xenia thereby forged bonds that lasted forever, the Greeks believed, and so passed on to their heirs in perpetuity. In fact, xenoi frequently enjoyed the honor of seeing their names given to one another’s sons. Such bonds could be purposely broken in a variety of ways, but they could always be reestablished by deliberate action. Even though it was technically customary to admit any stranger to one’s table, especially thanks to the ever-present fear that a stranger might in fact be a god in disguise (as in the story of Zeus and Hermes who, disguised as poor beggars, rewarded the old couple Baucis and Philemon for their unique, kind hospitality), individuals who shared xenia usually belonged to the same stratum within their society. Hospitality served, then, to display such status and to reinforce it through mutual obligations of inviting and hosting. Politically active Athenians, especially those of the upper classes, joined associations known as hetaireiai to advance their goals and interests. In such political clubs, the bonds among members were cemented through acts of hospitality, especially dining together on particular occasions. The fifth-century BCE historian Herodotus speaks much of far-flung xenoi. Indeed, it was Greek tradition throughout their history to forge links of friendship and support with foreigners (broadly construed as Greeks from other communities as well as non-Greeks) by means of hospitality. Greek stories preserve many descriptions of such xenia. The Odyssey, in particular, is replete with them: Odysseus’ wife and son try to be good hosts to the nobles seeking Penelope’s hand in marriage (to their detriment); Menelaus and Nestor invite Telemachus to table fellowship, as the Phaeacians do most generously with Odysseus. In such tales, proper hospitality serves as a mark of character and civilized culture. Thus, the Cyclops Polyphemus treats himself to a meal of some of Odysseus’

Food and Drink: Hospitality

men rather than offering to share any of his milk or cheese with the hero and his comrades. Moreover, Odysseus entertains the Cyclops with a generous gift of wine, when proper xenia should have worked the other way around. Homer’s message would have been clear to any ancient Greek: Polyphemus represents an uncivilized society in which hospitality is either neglected or perverted. Besides entertaining one another at table or joining in one another’s political ventures, xenoi, whether fellow citizens or foreigners, frequently provided each other with foodstuffs and money free of charge (though with the expectation of favors in return); xenoi from different countries sometimes offered weapons and troop support to one another when involved in political disturbances or military operations. Those tied to one another by bonds of reciprocal hospitality could also be called upon to provide very significant assistance to one’s family in time of need. For example, when Aratus of Sicyon was seven years old, his father was murdered. The young boy fled to the city-state of Argos in the custody of his father’s xenoi from there; these patrikoi xenoi served as godparents of a sort, raising, educating, and protecting Aratus, who would go on to become one of the foremost Greek statesmen and generals of the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE). The ancient Greeks considered it a crime against the gods as well as a crime against fellow human beings to betray the bonds of hospitality. As a result, every Greek man and woman strove to treat guests with the utmost respect and care. Still, xenia seems to have featured in the upper and middle classes, particularly in elite society, much more than it did among the lower classes because it required that one have disposable resources to give away. See also: Arts: History; Philosophy, Aristotle; Poetry, Epic; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Landownership; Travel; Family and Gender: Friendship and Love; Weddings; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Condiments and Seasonings; Dessert; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Hunting and Wild Game; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Wine; Housing and Community: Country Life; Marketplaces; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Diplomacy; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill.

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The World of Ancient Greece Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2002. Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices. London: British Museum Press. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Detienne, M. 1994. The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Finley, M. I. 1972. The World of Odysseus. 2nd ed. London and New York: Penguin. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Herman, G. 1978. Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Kloppenborg, J. S., and S. G. Wilson, eds. 1996. Voluntary Associations in the GrecoRoman World. London and New York: Routledge. Slater, W. J., ed. 1991. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

HUNTING AND WILD GAME Besides the meat of their domesticated animals, the ancient Greeks also consumed the flesh of wild animals captured in the hunt. Particularly favored was the meat of the wild boar (kapros, suagros) and the deer (elaphos), found notably in the forested uplands of the Greek mainland and Asia Minor, and of the hare (lagoˉs), found notably in the rugged lowlands of Aetolia as well as abundantly on several small islands of the Aegean. Greek storytellers associated hunting (kune¯gia) with the heroes of legend. Not only did such figures search out animals in the wild to feed themselves, their families, and their guests, but they also cleared their territory of dangers in the process, a benefit to all their people. Indeed, the Greeks loved to share tales about the unusual creatures destroyed by huntsmen heroes, like the Calydonian boar killed by the spear of Meleager or the lion of Nemea clubbed and strangled to death by Heracles. Even in Classical times (490–323 BCE), it was said that the warriors of Macedon, a region rich in wild game (the¯ra, the¯reia krea), still hunted in Homeric style, like their very ancient ancestors.

Food and Drink: Hunting and Wild Game

Gilt-silver paten, or phiale, late fifth century BCE. Greeks used the phiale to pour libations of various liquids (usually wine) as offerings to the gods and decorated them with a variety of motifs, as in this case where four young men engage in a deer hunt on horseback. Likely, this phiale belonged originally to an aristocrat, famed for their hunting prowess in Greek society, and would have been used as part of rituals honoring the gods for a successful hunt. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Gift of Mary and Michael Jaharis, in honor of Thomas P. Campbell, 2015)

Although hunting in the Greek world remained a wealthy man’s pastime, as clearly evidenced in the handbook for hunters (Cyne¯getica) by the Athenian historian Xenophon as well as other sources, there seem to have been no privileged places for hunting reserved according to status, as there would be in the European Middle Ages; ancient Greek nobles did not have exclusive control of or rights to the wilderness areas in the Greek territories. Only a few places regarded as especially sacred to gods, such as Artemis, were off limits to hunters. Otherwise, hunting was open to all. The elite may have engaged in it most extensively as a sort of status indicator and thanks to an abundance of leisure time, but anyone else who wanted or needed to hunt could do so, providing for themselves and their families a form of recreation and, more important, an extra supply of food. The ancient Greek word kune¯gia derives from the word for dog, indicating the essential role played by hounds in the hunt from earliest times. Hounds were very important in the catching of hares, for instance, and in flushing out wild boars

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from their hiding places. In addition to employing various breeds of dogs (as discussed by Xenophon) named for their supposed place of origin (Molossian, Cretan, Laconian, Gallic, even Indian), Greek hunters also made use of nets, snares, clubs, bows-and-arrows, javelins, and spears. Well-to-do and professional hunters hired other men to assist them in the hunt and developed complex maneuvers, almost military in nature, to catch their prey. Anyone else who had the time and the equipment needed to hunt practiced simpler versions of these methods; even the humblest farmer or shepherd typically had at least one hunting dog, for instance. Hunting was done traditionally on foot; hunting from horseback was very rare until the period after Alexander the Great (d. 323 BCE). Together with his companions, he gave great impetus to the image of the mounted hunter flying after his prey. In the hunt for hares, if they were not physically captured by one’s hunting dog, they were trapped using snares or nets and then bludgeoned with clubs. Hares sold for about the same price as a kid goat in the ancient marketplaces. They were usually roasted whole on the spit, sprinkled with salt or coriander seed, and seem to have been served best at medium doneness; some Greek cooks seasoned them with sauces made from cheese, leeks, and olive oil. The chopped meat of hares was also boiled in soups. Wild boars were typically caught in nets; once taken, they were usually speared to death. Many Greeks regarded the white meat of the boar as better than any pork from domesticated pigs. Just as in many Mediterranean countries today, the Greeks usually roasted the wild boar whole on the spit. Roasted boar steaks and boar’s head, and fried boar’s liver, seem to have been favorite dishes. Deer, especially the stags or hinds of the red deer, were chased down and killed by arrow or javelin; Greek hunters even beat captured fawns to draw out their mothers for the kill. The venison of butchered deer, again typically roasted, seems to have been the least appreciated of the wild game discussed here. The Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) saw the Greeks begin to farm game animals; they created special game preserves (the¯riotropheia) for the purpose. From the first century BCE onward, such game farming really took off under the patronage of the Romans, who needed large numbers of “wild” animals not so much for food but rather to supply the beast hunts (venationes) in their spectacles. The success of game farming meant that more of such meat became available in the marketplaces of the Greek world, and it was apparently not much more expensive than the meat from domesticated livestock. Ancient Greek sculptures, relief carvings, and painted vases preserve many scenes of hunting. The popularity of such images in ancient art illustrates the significant role played by the hunt in Greek culture. Hunting helped display and prove valued traits associated with masculinity, such as stamina, bravery, and strength. Hunting pitted humanity against the wilderness and seemed to show the former as the victor. Most important, hunting provided an important supplement to the diet

Food and Drink: Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils

of the ancient Greeks, as well as supplying them with bone, skins, and furs quite useful in their day-to-day survival. See also: Arts: History; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Landownership; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Soups and Stews; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Anderson, J. K. 1985. Hunting in the Ancient World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Barringer, J. M. 2001. The Hunt in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hull, D. B. 1964. Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kalof, L., ed. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg. Pollard, J. 1977. Birds in Greek Life and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

KITCHENS/KITCHEN UTENSILS Archaeological evidence suggests that some ancient Greek homes had rooms that served as permanent kitchen space, while others did not. In either case, the items Greeks used for the preparation, cooking, and storage of food, that is, kitchen utensils broadly conceived, would be readily recognizable to us today. One of the central features of an ancient Greek home, the family’s hestia, or sacred hearth fire, could be used for the purpose of cooking. In houses that had a kitchen there might also be an oven, typically located in a corner of the room, or an oven might be located in the courtyard of the house. Such ovens could be

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open, like a modern fireplace, or closed, like a wood-burning furnace, depending on the circumstances and desires of the household. Still, the most common cooking heat source among the Greeks seems to have been the portable brazier, known as puraunos or eschara. It might be made of ceramic or metal and came in a wide variety of shapes, most commonly like a large flower pot (the so-called cylindrical type, filled with burning coals over which a cooking pot or casserole would be placed) or like a large shallow goblet (layered in coals over which skewers would be held). Greek potters provided much of the equipment needed by ancient Greek cooks, ceramic ware of various grades being among the most common items utilized. In addition to the ceramic brazier, for instance, they made the casserole dishes or crockpots (itself a redundant English term for a ceramic/pottery item in which one cooks) that Greeks used to boil water, porridge, meats, vegetables, and so on. Called chytra, they came in bowl or oval shapes and were either placed on the cylindrical brazier as noted or suspended above an open flame; sometimes, the chytra was fitted atop a metal tripod with the heat source under its legs. A bronze version of the chytra, called a lebe¯s, was also manufactured for Greek kitchens as a cauldron, a reminder that many items, such as skewering or cooking forks, roasting spits, knives of various sizes and blades, spoons also of various depths and lengths, were produced in bronze, iron, and, among the wealthy, even silver or gold. Greek cooks, whether in town or country, might often store wine for immediate serving or cooking in wineskins, but they also did so in large, plump-looking ceramic jugs wrapped in wicker called phlaskia (hence our word “flask”), as they did for water in similar ones called hydriae. Respectable Greeks rarely drank wine undiluted, so the water and wine were mixed for meals and parties in large, handled bowls called krate¯res (root of the English word “crater”) and then ladled into drinking goblets (kylikes or kantharoi) of various sizes and shapes. A Greek kitchen might even be equipped with a special mushroom-shaped pot designed to keep wine cool; the pot filled with wine sat inside a krate¯r of cold water. In addition to the drinking vessels just mentioned, Greek potters produced a variety of platters and plates (lekanai) for the Greek dinner table. Members of the family itself might also make wickerwork items for serving food, like the kaneon or the spuris, both shallow wickerwork trays, round or oval, upon which they placed fresh bread or fish. Many storage items in the Greek kitchen were made of wickerwork. In the kalathos, a bucket-shaped basket, Greek cooks stored fresh fruit, for instance. Naturally, there were many variations in size and density of kitchen baskets, some with open seams to allow food items (like curds and whey) to drain and others tight enough even to hold fluids without any leaking.

Food and Drink: Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils

Terracotta drinking cup, or kylix, known as the Cassel Cup, third quarter of sixth century BCE. Athenians made use of cups like these to consume wine mixed with water during their symposia, or after-dinner drinking parties. Fashion dictated that the cups be ornamented according to the tastes of the host and his guests, in this case painted with tongues, ivy, laurel, and rays. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Museum Accession)

For the preparation of the all-important grains in the ancient Greek diet, a crucial kitchen gadget was the hand mill, or cheiromule¯. It consisted of two stone discs, the bottom one fixed, the top one positioned just slightly above it; in the top stone, there was a hole through which dried grain could be poured to land between the stones. Then, a handle was used to turn the top stone and the friction of catching the grain between the stones ground it into a flour. Of course, Greek cooks were also familiar with the mortar and pestle. Greek cooks had wooden tables standing on legs or sometimes attached to the walls for use like our countertops today, that is, both for the placement of goods and for the working up of recipes. Kitchen walls would have been hung with various items on pegs or nails, such as cooking pots or wine skins. Certainly in Roman times, Greek homes also had wooden cupboards for storing articles, but no evidence of these exists for earlier periods in Greek history. In the kitchen itself or in a storage room within the home, one would have found large ceramic vessels known as pithoi for the keeping of honey, wine, grain, olive oil, figs, salted meat, water, in short any of the basic foodstuffs in the Greek diet;

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often pithoi had no handles, since they were not really intended to be moved around, and sometimes they were even buried partly or fully into the ground to maintain the temperature and humidity levels required by the various commodities stored within them. The pithos when elongated and thinned out in form became the amphora, also frequently utilized for keeping larger amounts of stored food and drink, especially wine. Smaller versions of the pithos, the stamnos and bikos, could sit atop a kitchen worktable and be moved around easily by means of their handles; they resembled a large chili or stew pot today, only with an onion-like shape, and often contained the same items as the pithoi, but, in this case, ready for use in cooking. In the cooking, serving, eating, and storage of food, certainly ceramic items were of most importance among Greek kitchen utensils. The local blacksmith, and those skilled in tanning hides or making wickerwork, also contributed to the great variety of equipment available to ancient Greek cooks. See also: Economics and Work: Metalworking; Pottery-Making; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Dessert; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Olives and Olive Oil; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Wine; Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings; Housing Architecture; Recreation and Social Customs: Symposia FURTHER READING Dalby, A. 1996. Sirens Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

LEGUMES Legumes (chedropa or ospria) served as one of the staple foods in the ancient Greek diet, especially providing protein, carbohydrates, fats, and minerals. Legumes were particularly important for their high protein content (some having as much as 25 percent protein), since the Greek diet did not include large quantities of meat. References to legumes in Greek literature go all the way back to Homer’s Iliad; archaeological evidence demonstrates that they were cultivated throughout Greek history. Lentils (  phakoi) can be identified in the oldest agricultural evidence for the ancient Greeks, cultivated alongside cereal crops. They are the most commonly

Food and Drink: Legumes

mentioned legume in ancient Greek literature and appear to have been the most commonly consumed in everyday life. Lentils were produced all over the Greek world, but the region of Gela in Greek Sicily seems to have grown the most special kind. The ancient Greeks made a sort of pasta from lentils, mixed boiled lentils with coriander or steeped them in vinegar, dressed them with onions or beets (bolbophake¯ or teutlophake¯), and even ate them at dessert with cheesecake. Particularly, soups were made with lentils; a hearty meal consisted of lentil soup (  phake¯) and a piece of sausage. Lentils served as a ceremonial food at funerals, and doctors in the Hippocratic tradition prescribed boiled lentils or simple lentil soup to relieve the pain of ulcers and to help reduce the causes of hemorrhoids. Next to lentils, the most common legume consumed by the ancient Greeks was the chickpea or garbanzo bean (erebinthos); introduced into their agricultural repertoire later than the lentil, erebinthoi soon became almost as popular. They seem to have been eaten primarily as a snack food or as part of dessert, either raw when fresh, like nuts, or roasted, as modern people do with chestnuts, and sometimes seasoned. The gourmand Athenaeus of Naucratis (second century CE), for instance, included in his work a reference to the famous philosopher-theologian Xenophanes of Colophon (sixth century BCE) who, like many ancient Greeks, enjoyed crunching chickpeas with wine while relaxing in the winter months. When the character of Praxagora promises prosperity to her political supporters, in the Assemblywomen by the comedic playwright Aristophanes, she tells them all that they will have plenty of erebinthoi, which gives us some indication of the importance chickpeas had in the ancient Greek diet. Besides chickpeas, the ancient Greeks had many other beans to choose from among their legumes. The most common beans were the loboi, individual pod beans like the dolichos or the phase¯los, which resembled kidney beans in shape. Eaten pod and all when fresh, sometimes raw as a sweet snack, otherwise their pods were given to farm animals as fodder and their kernels eaten. Ancient Greeks liked their loboi fried up with barley, served up as a relish, mixed with sage, boiled as a side dish for ham and cheese, or made into a very filling bean soup. The most popular pod bean, the fava or broad bean (kuamos), was purchased in the “bean market” of the town square (kuamitis). Ancient Greeks prepared it like the other pod beans, but sometimes had it for dessert, mixed with very ripe figs. The Spartans served visitors to their religious festivals a meal called kopis, which consisted of dried figs and lybia, roasted or fresh pod beans. Beans had the reputation of being the food of philosophers; Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, evidently enjoyed lupin beans (thermoi) steeped in wine! The sect of the Pythagoreans forbade the eating of fava beans, though, perhaps because of their belief that human souls might have transmigrated into them after death, perhaps because of the very bad reactions some Greeks experienced from consuming too

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much fava (today this condition is known as favism, caused by a severe sort of allergic reaction to the chemical properties of the bean). The two types of pea prevalent in the ancient Greek diet were the pisos (garden pea) and the lathyros (grass pea). Both were eaten fresh or boiled in a broth or into a pea soup (etnos) or thick porridge (lekithos). There seems to have been a fondness for having peas in one form or another alongside boiled cabbage. On some of the Greek islands in the south Aegean, the inhabitants mashed peas and lentils together, in place of barley meal, to mix into their ceremonial wine. Many ancient Greek legumes fall under the heading of vetches, including orobos, arachidna, aphake¯, glax, krios, arakos, or seistros, none of these really translatable into English. The Athenian orator Demosthenes referred to such lower-level legumes as foods of desperation, the kind eaten by the Athenians during the last, troubled phase of the Peloponnesian War. Athenaeus identifies different sorts of vetches according to eating preferences, white or yellow being preferred to black, for instance, soaked to dry, fresh to stored, and so on. Apparently, the Milesians produced the best variety of vetch. Vetches were prepared like other legumes, and the Greeks were fond of combining different legumes together into panospria or puanos/puanion, the latter cooked sweet. A number of Greek communities, as for instance Athens, held religious festivals named for the pyanepsia or pyanopsia, a ceremonial dish of barley and mixed legumes. The ancient Greeks also ground up various legumes to add to cereals and include as a bread or cake ingredient; they did this particularly with chickpea meal. Such legume breads were called etnite¯s or lekithite¯s artos. The ancient Greeks did use legumes, or legume leavings, as fodder for their livestock, but Aristophanes goes too far when representing legumes as the lowly food of low-class people, like “dirty” sausage sellers and immoral male escorts. The ancient Greeks did derive some of their most colorful sexual slang from the world of legumes, but this, along with other evidence of lifestyle, rituals, and agriculture, only betrays the widespread consumption of legumes in their society; there was even an entire profession of legume sellers (ospriopoˉlai) in the marketplaces of the Greek world. Besides, Athenaeus makes clear that the “more respectable” classes also ate their legumes at their grand banquets. Capable of being consumed fresh or after being dried and stored for very long periods of time, legumes figured into many different meals and recipes and were considerably stockpiled by the ancient Greeks to see them through tough times. Legumes were essential eating in their world. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Cooking; Dessert; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Wine; Recreation

Food and Drink: Meals

and Social Customs: Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Brumfield, A. 1981. The Attic Festivals of Demeter and Their Relation to the Agricultural Year. New York: Chandor. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A., and S. Grainger. 1996. The Classical Cookbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moritz, L. A. 1958. Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Slater, W. 1991. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

MALNUTRITION. See NUTRITION AND MALNUTRITION MEALS For the most part, the ancient Greeks ate rather simple meals of basic foodstuffs. The number of meals taken each day in the world of the ancient Greeks depended on the customs of the community to which one belonged. Most Greeks took two or three meals a day. The ancient Greeks began their day with a rather simple breakfast. From at least the fifth century BCE, they referred to it as akratismos or akratisma, which actually denoted the drinking of wine unmixed with water. This applied to breakfast when it consisted of a piece of bread dipped in straight wine. As the comic playwright Aristophanes lets us know, however, akratismos and akratisma were used in the more general sense of breakfast involving any small amount of food or a limited range of food, as when one of his characters speaks of having plums (kokkume¯la) for breakfast. The epic poet Homer three centuries earlier had utilized the word ariston to denote breakfast, that is, the meal taken on waking up in the morning. Later generations of Greeks continued to utilize ariston in that way, but, by the fifth century BCE, they were also using akratismos and akratisma, so that ariston might mean, instead, the meal taken in the middle of the workday, that is, lunch. Context, then, determined the exact usage of that word.

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To add to the confusion in terminology, some Greek communities called their midday meal deipnon, while others used that word to denote the meal taken at sunset, the very last meal of the day. This meal might also be referred to in some locales as dorpon. The foods consumed at lunch or dinner, not surprisingly, varied according to a family’s socioeconomic status. If we can utilize the tales of the poet Homer as a guide for how the Greek elite lived in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), and perhaps back to Mycenaean times (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) as well, they evidently consumed a great deal of roasted meat, whether mutton, goat, beef, or pork, at all their meals, supplemented by baskets of fresh bread and lots of wine (diluted with water to prevent or at least delay drunkenness). In later periods of Greek history, only the very well-to-do could eat like this, and they did not tend to do so as part of their regular meals. They did enjoy some heavy meats, like beef, but more light meats, like veal, pork, and mutton, a little poultry as well, and a lot more seafood in comparison. Overall, cereals (wheat and barley) prepared in a variety of ways, lots of vegetables, some legumes and fruits, and bread dominated the elite diet in most Greek communities. They drank more and better wine at their meals than people of lesser status, but even this wine tended to be locally produced more often than imported from abroad. The majority of the Greek people, and especially those peasants who lived and worked in the countryside of the Greek territories, consumed more cereals (in the form of porridge, barley cakes similar to the rice cakes with which many people today are familiar, and coarse bread), vegetables (especially cabbages, turnips, onions, radishes, cucumbers), beans and legumes (especially lentils), fruits (especially figs), milk, and cheese than the elite. Otherwise, their meals differed from the elite in the presence of more foods gathered from the wild (greens, roots, bulbs, and so on), less meat, mostly from very young animals or ground up in the form of sausages, and less wine, all locally produced, and not always of the finest vintage. Even humble meals were taken in stages. Meals began with appetizers of some sort, served in small bowls; these might consist of a little seafood or small fishes, dishes of vegetables (cooked or raw), hard-boiled eggs, salads, fruits, or nuts. Then came one or more courses (trapezai), varying from class to class. Cheese, for example, often served as the main course in humbler families, together with barley cakes, onions, leeks, garlic, or olives. At the conclusion of dinner, the Greeks enjoyed a variety of desserts, such as honey cakes and cheesecakes, fruits and cheese, nuts, and so on, but whether these were served as a regular or expected feature is hard to establish; they may have been reserved for the drinking parties or symposia that followed the deipnon in some Greek communities. A libation of wine and a toast to the gods and to the health of all in attendance at the meal typically brought the deipnon to a formal end, a feature that did not seem to belong to the ariston.

Food and Drink: Meals

When eating their meals, especially the deipnon, ancient Greek men reclined on couches, a custom that they may have imported from the Persian Empire, while ancient Greek women sat on chairs. In terms of eating utensils, they sometimes used spoons, but rarely knives and, evidently, never forks. They relied on their hands to do the work, having pitchers of water, washbasins, and towels at the ready always before meals for the washing of hands and frequently during meals; they even used a form of soap (sme¯gma) to cover the smell of the foods they had touched with a more pleasing fragrance. An alternative, and apparently popular, method of cleaning one’s hands during and after a meal was to scrub them with bread or breadcrumbs, which would then be discarded or given to pets or farm animals as part of their feed. In between meals, Greeks took snacks (akoloi, psoˉmismata) of cheese, fruit, roasted legumes, and nuts. For instance, they enjoyed roasting bits of hard cheese over an open fire or roasting chickpeas as snack foods. More affluent Greeks did not prepare their own meals, but instead had their slaves do so; those who wished to really impress their guests would hire professional cooks from the marketplace or from locales famed for their culinary talent (like the Greek communities of Sicily). The kataluseis (resting places perhaps like inns) attested from the fifth century BCE onward as existing inside and outside of Greek urban centers likely had dining facilities, probably the home cooking of the proprietors. In addition, references in fifth-century plays and speeches of fourthcentury orators to young men hanging around kape¯leia (shops) and to mageireia (cook shops) may indicate the existence of bars, taverns, or restaurants among the Greeks. Through most of their history, then, the ancient Greeks ate very simply, even at the deipnon. The staple foods were a variety of grains rich in carbohydrates; to these, they added flavor with lots of garlic and onions, and rounded out meals mostly with salads of fresh greens, a variety of vegetables, and often some seafood. This helps to explain the phrase that Greeks often used to describe a full meal, sitos kai opsa, which we would translate as “grain and relishes” (relishes including cheese, vegetables, soup, honey, olive oil, and so on). See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Fishing; Landownership; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Weddings; Fashion and Appearance: Hygiene; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Dessert; Drunkenness; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Fruits and Nuts; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils; Legumes; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Wine; Housing and Community:

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Country Life; Marketplaces; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2002. Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices. London: British Museum Press. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Detienne, M. 1994. The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Slater, W. J., ed. 1991. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

MEAT The ancient Greeks did not consume as much meat (kreas), by far, as modern people do; it was too expensive a commodity. Indeed, the meat of cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs was typically only eaten in any sizable quantity as part of religious festivals. Still, there were many other occasions during the course of the year when sacrifices of such animals were made to the gods on a smaller scale. Such occasions would have seen the consumption of meat by individuals, families, and organizations. In other words, unlike today, when someone might eat meat as often as three times a day or even more, the Greek calendar would have been punctuated with special moments of meat eating. In the earliest preserved writings of their culture, the epic poetry of Homer, one finds meat eating to be a high-status activity, particularly associated with the

Food and Drink: Meat

banquets of the Bronze Age heroes. Indeed, legendary heroes such as Odysseus or Ajax or especially Heracles are rarely seen eating anything else besides meat (especially roasted beef  ) and bread, and their raids of enemy territory usually involve plundering livestock, especially sheep and goats, to fill their larders. Scholars observe in Homer’s tales the realities of the Greek Bronze Age (c. 1700–1100 BCE) and Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE). Elite Greeks in those periods had control over and hence access to ample supplies of fresh and preserved meat and indulged in its consumption much more than the commoners and slaves of their time could have afforded to. Such traditional stratification of the food supply according to class evidently continued into the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), but as the city-states emerged, and civic religion along with them, the demand for meat on the part of the general public apparently put pressure on the elites to share some of it with their fellow citizens. Another factor would have been the insistence on the part of Greek communities, as at Athens, that their wealthiest citizens provide nutritional assistance to the mass of the population through donation or purchase of supplies of meat on special, “national” occasions; in the past, the elite feasted each other in such ways at private dinners, but in Classical (490–323 BCE) and Hellenistic (323–30 BCE) times the citizenry in general expected also to be “guests” of the more fortunate at public banquets. Naturally, increasing demand promoted larger-scale animal husbandry and some parts of the Greek world became famous for the environmental conditions that permitted this and for their particular herds. The region of Attica, for example, was renowned in Classical times for its three breeds of sheep, while the region of Epirus was known as big cattle country; the island of Melos produced some of the finest goats, while the woodlands of Arcadia saw many pigs. Moreover, the Greeks even traded for meat animals from faraway places, like sheep from Syria and Arabia, a tradition stretching back to Homeric times that seems to have continued into later eras. Although the ancient Greeks did consume some beef (bous), they seem to have believed that the gods favored that particular meat above all others and, thus, that it should be mostly reserved for them. Besides, cattle, known in both long- and shorthorned breeds, required the greatest investment among all those animals that might be eaten for their meat. Although they did sometimes slaughter calves to make veal (krea moscheia), they thought it better to consume beef at major sacrifices (such as at the Olympic Games, where one hundred bulls were offered to Zeus) and otherwise rely on full-grown cattle as draught animals. Consequently, for their own food, the Greeks stuck primarily to the meat of goats, sheep, and pigs. The Greeks raised their pigs (choiroi) on all sorts of farm residues, especially from grape harvesting and wine pressing; they also allowed their pigs to forage widely in scrubland and forests. Pigs were, thus, fairly easy to rear within the mixed agriculture practiced by the ancients; the animals also bred all year,

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providing many piglets, which were most often butchered. Pigs were slaughtered to make hams, bacon, and sausages. Pork was likely the meat consumed on the most regular basis across the ancient Greek world, either in the form of boiling, roasting, or grilling particularly when fresh or pickled, or in the form of frying particularly when salt-cured or smoked. Sheep (arnoi, me¯la) were also raised as part of mixed farming techniques; lamb (amnos) and mutton served as some of the most common meats among the ancient Greeks. Mutton, if not eaten fresh, was usually either smoked or dried. Lamb seems to have been much more popular than mutton and was sometimes stuffed with seasonings to enhance its natural flavor. The Greeks also roasted whole lambs on the spit, just like they did with suckling pigs and kid goats. Goats (aiges, tragoi) were bred in large numbers, in the rugged hills and on the underpopulated islands of the ancient Greek territories; indeed, some Aegean islands had only goats as inhabitants. In this way, they were kept far from farmlands, whose crops they would otherwise have ravaged. Just as with sheep, the meat of kid goats was more popular than that of full-grown animals, and the method of cooking was usually roasting. In addition to the cuts of meat that modern Americans would expect from domesticated animals (steaks, ribs, shoulders, shanks, loins, belly, etc.), the ancient Greeks also eagerly consumed animal parts like ears, feet, head, tongue, snout, liver, intestines and other innards, marrow bones, and even jawbones. Typically, these parts came from calves, lambs, kid goats, or pigs and were boiled; sometimes they stuffed the stomach, spleen, or intestines with chopped meats, herbs, and other seasonings. They also chopped up less desirable meats as an addition to soups and stews and to make meat balls and even mincemeat pies (similar to the Cornish pastie). Archaeological evidence suggests that most butchering in the ancient Greek world took place within sacred precincts, performed by priests, or more accurately, by their assistants. Thus, the link to religious sacrifice could never be lost. There did exist, in addition, butcher shops where professional butchers (kreopoˉlai) served the needs of the public by slaughtering animals brought into town by farmers and selling off the meat and other parts; many farmers themselves likely also knew how to butcher their own livestock. Moreover, Greek farmers and stock raisers practiced a variety of methods to preserve meat, as noted earlier, for eating long after butchering; in some cases, they even steeped meat in honey to preserve it. Even though meat eating was more a luxury than it is today, the ancient Greeks did recognize the nutritional value of meat consumption. This was part of the reason why they regarded it as an essential food for warriors in their early history and later strongly recommended it for athletes to maintain their strength and build muscle. Yet the notion that even the everyday working person should have

Food and Drink: Nectar and Ambrosia

more meat in their diet seems to have escaped them, and there were even groups among the Greeks, such as the Pythagoreans, who refused to consume meat at all as a matter of principle. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Landownership; Food and Drink: Bread; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Meals; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Soups and Stews; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Arbuckle, B.  S., and S.  A. McCarty, eds. 2014. Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Howe, T. 2008. Pastoral Politics: Animals, Agriculture and Society in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ryder, M. L. 1983. Sheep and Man. London: Duckworth. Whittaker, C. R., ed. 1988. Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

NECTAR AND AMBROSIA The ancient Greeks asserted that the Olympian gods did not have blood running through their veins like human beings, but rather a mysterious substance that they called ichoˉr. By the same token, their deities did not eat typical food, but instead consumed nectar and ambrosia. The Greek word ambrosia derives from Indo-European root syllables denoting “deathless”; for instance, it shares linguistic lineage with the Sanskrit word amrtam, translated as the potion of immortality. A number of ancient Greek poets, including Sappho, Anaxandrides, and Alcman, similarly identified ambrosia as the beverage of the gods. Most Greek authors, however, perhaps following the lead

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of Homer, described ambrosia as the food of the gods, akin to the meat and bread consumed as staples by human beings. Legend had it that meek doves, perhaps a reference, in fact, to the nymphs called Pleiades, mysteriously brought ambrosia to Zeus from the very edges of the Earth. Just like humans did with precious foodstuffs, the gods on Mount Olympus stocked up on ambrosia; Maia, mother of Hermes, stored her supply in three full closets! On Olympus, the gods sat down to feasts with one another where ambrosia was served; doing so symbolized their community. According to the poet Hesiod, for instance, after Zeus freed the Hekatoncheires from their imprisonment at the hands of his father Kronos, he invited them to dine on ambrosia on Mount Olympus. The divine entities consumed ambrosia elsewhere as well, such as when Calypso on her island set a table with abundance of ambrosia upon it for Hermes as her guest. On the other hand, those deities who had forsworn themselves after having made the most sacred divine libation of water from the River Styx were forbidden from the communal feasts of ambrosia and nectar for ten years! Ancient Greeks seem to have regarded this substance as somehow essential to the immortality of their gods. The powers of the latter diminished when they failed to eat ambrosia regularly, as when Demeter abstained from ambrosia for ten days during her grieving search for her missing daughter Persephone. Even the sacred horses that served the gods ate ambrosia to sustain themselves, either from mangers filled with the stuff or in fields where it miraculously grew, as in the stories told about the chariot teams of Hera and Poseidon. Hence the story told of Tantalus. The son of Zeus by the Oceanid nymph Plutone, Tantalus literally hungered for life among the gods on Mount Olympus; once invited to a banquet among them, he left an unsatisfied guest. As a consequence, he stole some of the sacred ambrosia not only for himself but also, apparently, for other humans who had not been invited to the divine feast. Learning of the gods’ anger with him, Tantalus sought to appease them, especially Zeus, by offering up his own son as a sacrifice; murdering his son only served to demonstrate further his hybris. Upon his death, then, Tantalus was confined within Tartarus, thirsting eternally for water in a stream that receded beneath his feet and hungering for fruit in a tree that forever pulled away its branches from him. From then on, it seems, human beings were forbidden from eating ambrosia, an act that would place them out of bounds under the rules of the universe. Even those highly favored by the gods were not exempt; the nymph Calypso made this clear when she dined with Odysseus before allowing him to depart her island, keeping the ambrosia on her side of the table and having her servants provide him with only the food of mortals. Still, the goddess Athena placed ambrosia into the heart of grieving Achilles to prevent him from feeling hunger or thirst while he mourned for his fallen comrade

Food and Drink: Nectar and Ambrosia

Patroclus, and the goddess Demeter anointed the baby prince Demophon of Eleusis each day with ambrosia so that he would not need to eat but would grow strong and godlike anyway. There were, then, other ways of being affected by ambrosia than just consuming it. The goddess Themis, for instance, sprinkled ambrosia upon Apollo when he was a baby god; the comedic playwright Aristophanes lampooned this notion by having the character of the sausage seller in Knights dream of Athena similarly sprinkling ambrosia on the lead character Demus! The nymph Eidothea instructed Menelaus in how to catch Proteus, her shape-shifting father, by lying among his favorite seals; she placed ambrosia in the nostrils of Menelaus and his men so that they would not smell the stench of the animals all around them and especially of the sealskins they wore as disguises. Hera cleansed herself in ambrosia and anointed herself in ambrosial oil in an attempt to seduce her husband Zeus; Athena placed a similar anointment of ambrosia on Odysseus’ wife Penelope, like the kind utilized by the goddess Aphrodite, in order to make Penelope most alluring to her suitors. Zeus commanded Apollo to anoint the fallen hero Sarpedon with ambrosia in preparation for his interment; this external application acted as a preservative for the corpse. Ambrosia rarely appears in ancient Greek literature without being paired with nectar. The goddess Thetis placed ambrosia and nectar on the nostrils of her son’s comrade Patroclus to preserve his corpse from rotting; Aphrodite did something similar to protect the body of dead Hector from mutilation by Achilles’ dragging it around Patroclus’ burial mound. The poet Pindar, in commemoration of the horseracing victory of Hiero of Syracuse in the Olympics of 476 BCE, asserted that Tantalus had stolen both ambrosia and nectar from the gods, and, in his ode celebrating the Pythian victory of Telesicrates of Cyrene in the hoplitodromos of 474 BCE, described how baby Apollo had nectar and ambrosia dropped on his lips while lying in the laps first of Gaia and then of the Seasons. Even comedic characters, like Dicearchus in Acharnians, could speak of thirty-year treaties as smelling of ambrosia and nectar (that is, as seeming to be divinely eternal)! According to those authors who regarded ambrosia as a drink, nectar was a food, but among most ancient Greeks, nectar was the special beverage of immortality among the gods. Hence, Athena gave the immortal draught to Heracles to complete his apotheosis from demigod to full god. Otherwise, as with ambrosia, human beings were forbidden to partake in it. Various deities, including Hermes and Hebe, as well as mortal favorites of the gods, like Zeus’s Ganymede, served out the nectar during the banquets on Mount Olympus. It was drawn, the stories said, from a golden bowl to be poured into golden cups. The gods made their pledges upon nectar, just as humans did upon wine. Like wine, nectar was supposedly red in color. This differed from ambrosia, which

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was referred to as pleasant and sweet (some said it was nine times sweeter than honey!), but never described in such a physical sense. Still, associations between wine and both ambrosia and nectar appear to have been common in Greek society. Polyphemus the Cyclops, for example, called the wine given him by Odysseus a little stream of ambrosia and nectar. Greek poets and playwrights dubbed Pramnian, Naxian, and Lesbian wines nectar; Pindar, for instance, in his commemoration of the victory of Phylacidas of Aegina in the Isthmian pankration of 484 BCE, describes as nectar a libation of wine made to Zeus by Heracles. So the importance of nectar and ambrosia to the gods led the Greeks to apply these words to much that they considered heavenly within their own terrestrial sphere. Besides wine, for instance, they spoke of roasted sturgeon or lentil pasta as ambrosial; Pindar even described his victory ode for Diagoras of Rhodes in the Olympic boxing contest of 464 BCE as a form of “liquid nectar,” “a gift from the Muses.” To top it all off, the Greeks concocted a special mixture of fruits, olive oil, and water as an offering to the gods and called it ambrosia, or a mixture of wine, fragrant flowers, and honeycombs and called it nectar. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Food and Drink: Fruits and Nuts; Hospitality; Legumes; Olives and Olive Oil; Wine; Recreation and Social Customs: Olympic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Chthonic Spirits; Creation; Deification; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Orphism FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

NUTRITION AND MALNUTRITION Most communities in the world of the ancient Greeks seem to have had a varied enough food supply to provide good nutrition and to ward off severe malnutrition. This did not mean that cases of malnutrition did not occur; especially among ancient Greek children, certain illnesses brought on by improper nutrition appear to have been chronic. Moreover, episodes of malnutrition happened as a result of famines and disturbances to the normal food supply, such as wars, infestations, and natural disasters.

Food and Drink: Nutrition and Malnutrition

The ancient Greeks consumed by far more grains than anything else; this appears to have been the case across all classes and communities. Their supplies of barley, wheat, and other grains provided them with ample carbohydrates as well as some proteins for conversion into caloric energy. Proteins and various minerals also came from relatively high consumption of legumes, beans, and seeds, as did different types of fats from relatively high consumption of nuts, cheese, and olive oil. Fruits, both fresh and dried, provided natural sugars, as did honey. A wide range of vegetables, from bulbs to leafy greens, contributed the most important vitamins in the ancient Greek diet. Red meat, poultry, fish and other seafood also provided fats, amino acids, and proteins, supplemented by wild game from hunting. Lastly, the ancient Greeks drank a lot of wine, with all of its health-giving properties as understood today but also made sure to construct their communities near abundant sources of fresh water; indeed, wine was seldom drunk without being mixed with a significant dose of water. Almost all Greek towns were located close to the sea; fluoride and iodine would have come into the Greek diet through the eating of seawater creatures and even from the use of seawater itself in various drinks and recipes. Indeed, analysis of the teeth and bones in the corpses exhumed from ancient Greek cemeteries indicates remarkably little tooth decay or osteoporosis, likely the result of a seafood-rich diet; a high intake of calcium from dairy products also would have contributed to this. Chronic absence of certain vitamins from the ancient Greek diet would have produced various illnesses. For instance, even though vitamin A was available through various fruits and vegetables, some Greeks still suffered from nuktaloˉps (night blindness), resulting from insufficient vitamin A in their diet. The ancient lifestyle brought most Greeks regularly out-of-doors; this meant considerable exposure to sunlight, which would have generated enough natural vitamin D to offset illnesses associated with dietary insufficiency of that vitamin. Paleopathology has brought to light evidence of rhachitis (rickets) in some communities, which is also noted by ancient Greek authors, but not in anything like the levels associated with early modern Europe. Few Greeks, then, would have suffered from vitamin D deficiency, but some apparently did. Archaeological analysis does suggest that mild anemia may have been a common problem in the ancient Greek world, resulting, in part, from iron deficiency. Red meat, the best available source for iron in the human diet, was eaten typically on special occasions only (such as religious festivals) and, thus, not regularly enough to prevent such anemia. The iron found in other foods, such as grains and nuts, would have compensated, but only up to a certain point. The ancient Greeks mitigated their largely seasonal food supply through extensive methods of food preservation, including pickling, drying, salting, and

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smoking, particularly of fish, cheese, meat, fruits, nuts, and legumes. In addition, those who lived in or close to the countryside regularly harvested wild foodstuffs to supplement their diet. As the pharmacological work of Dioscorides (first century CE) makes clear, the ancient Greeks had available to them through agriculture, hunting, and gathering in the wild an abundance of foods, as well as the means to preserve them over long periods, and so they had every opportunity to maintain a nutritious diet throughout the year. On the other hand, the very abundance of certain foodstuffs in their diet would have contributed to certain health issues. High intake of carbohydrates and sugars from fruit and honey, for instance, seems to have left Greeks prone to suffering from diseases such as diabetes (diabe¯te¯s, hydroˉps), gout (arthritis), and bladder stones (  poˉridia). Chronic malnutrition among the urban poor seems to have become common in Late Classical and Hellenistic times (that is, from the fourth century BCE onward), perhaps exacerbated by overpopulation in certain locales and consequent overreliance on imported foodstuffs, the transport of which could be disrupted by warfare, piracy, or faraway environmental problems or crop failures. The rural poor in the Greek territories did not usually share the same fate as their urban neighbors, since they often had more access to food of various kinds in the countryside and in the wild. Populations in urban centers, as political and military headquarters in the Greek world, were also more likely to suffer from periods of malnutrition than their rural counterparts as a result of the impact (more strongly felt by them) of shortages of food during war, especially caused by siege operations. On the other hand, rural populations were more likely to experience episodes of malnutrition as a result of natural disasters that affected the countryside more severely, such as freak hailstorms or pest infestations. Since at least the writings of Herodicus of Selymbria, a well-known physician and athletic trainer of the fifth century BCE, ancient Greek athletes and their trainers as well as physicians and medical writers devoted considerable, close attention to diet and, consequently, to nutrition; dietetics, in fact, became one of the three main branches of Greek medicine (together with pharmacology and surgery), spawning many works on the relation between eating certain foods and attaining certain states of health. The Greeks may not have had the technology to be able to ascertain why certain foods had particular nutritional value or other healthgiving properties, but they did usually understand which foods to consume, how to prepare them, and in what quantities to achieve desired results. For instance, they had learned through generations of careful observation that consuming more liver would assist women suffering from certain health conditions (like blood loss through menstruation) where dieticians today would recognize that such women had iron deficiency.

Food and Drink: Nutrition and Malnutrition

If there was any major drawback in ancient Greek dietetics, it was the growing adherence over time to elements of the humoral theory of the body, which insisted that negative conditions in the body could be mitigated by putting food into it of the “opposite” kind. In other words, trainers or physicians would prescribe a “dry, hot food” to combat an illness considered “wet” or “cold.” Moreover, they would instruct patients to consume certain foods more in some seasons than in others. Too close adherence to humoral theories could lead to nutritional deficiencies. For instance, the Hippocratic text On Regimen in Health advised people to eat fewer vegetables in the winter months because they were “wet/cold” foods; if people were to follow this advice, they would have reduced their intake of critical vitamins and minerals in that season. On the other hand, the humoral theory as regarding nutrition worked perfectly in the summer months, when physicians recommended drinking a lot more fluids to combat the season which was “hot/dry.” In the world of the ancient Greeks, threats to one’s health resulting from malnutrition were very real for a majority of the population. Not surprisingly, the Greeks recognized the importance of a nutrient-rich diet as a factor in maintaining good health. Fortunately for them, their natural environment and food-growing/ food-preparation practices helped them stave off malnutrition considerably. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/ Pharmacology; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Childbirth and Infancy; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths; Hygiene; Food and Drink: Bread; Cheese and Other Dairy Products; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Dessert; Fruits and Nuts; Legumes; Meat; Poisons and Toxic Foods; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Vegetables; Wine; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Cosmology; Experimentation and Research; Medicine; Zoology FURTHER READING Aufderheide, A. C., and C. Rodríguez-Martín. 1998. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bergdolt, K. 2008. Wellbeing: A Cultural History of Healthy Living. Translated by J. Dewhurst. Cambridge: Polity Press. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dean-Jones, L. 1994. Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Edelstein, E. J., and L. Edelstein. 1998. Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gallant, T. W. 1991. Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece: Reconstructing the Rural Domestic Economy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Ancient Athens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Grmek, M. D. 1989. Diseases in the Ancient Greek World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hankinson, R. J. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jenkins, I., and V. Turner. 2009. The Greek Body. London: British Museum Press. Kiple, K. F., ed. 1993. The Cambridge World History of Human Disease. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Riddle, J. 1985. Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine. Austin: University of Texas Press. Roberts, C., and K. Manchester. 2005. The Archaeology of Disease. 3rd ed. Stroud, U.K.: History Press. Sallares, R. 1991. Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

OLIVES AND OLIVE OIL The wild olive tree (called by many names among the ancient Greeks, including kotinos, agrippos, agrielaios, and elaios) was native to the Mediterranean region for thousands of years before being domesticated in the Levant sometime in the period 7000–6000 BCE; in the Aegean area, it was cultivated after approximately 2000 BCE. Drought resistant, thriving in low altitudes, and capable of living for a hundred years or more, the wild olive and its domesticated variety (called elaia in ancient Greek) was the perfect partner for the grape and the cereals, wheat and barley, in the triad of crops upon which mixed Greek agriculture would flourish. In the most common form of olive tree propagation, the ancients gathered cuttings and especially ovules (trunk growths) from the trees they admired most and grafted these to the trunks of hearty wild trees. Many varieties resulted; the Greeks referred to red olives (elaiai pyrallides), coarse olives (  phauliai elaiai), dwarf olives (chamelaiai elaiai), and so on. The trees planted in an olive grove (elaiokomion) produced a full crop every other year.

Food and Drink: Olives and Olive Oil

Harvesting of olives took place during the fall, from September sometimes and in some locales all the way to December; farming families and their seasonal laborers or slaves would gather around the trees and beat them with long sticks to bring all the olives down to the ground. Pruning of the trees often occurred at this time as well or in the months following; this was essential in helping the trees to concentrate their energies on new growth and maximum fruit yield and size. Also necessary was the breaking up of the soil around the base of the tree, again in late autumn or early spring, which encouraged deep root growth, important for maximizing root access to the water-table (the ancient Greeks did not irrigate their trees) and the tree’s resistance to the heat of the Greek climate. Pigs and sheep did the rest of the maintenance, keeping the ground of the olive grove clean with their endless munching. The ancient Greeks liked all sorts of olives. They seem to have regarded the barely ripe green olives as best for eating, some believing that the fully ripe black olives brought on headaches and stomach trouble. Green olives required salting, usually in the form of pickling, to make them edible; they could not (and cannot) be consumed raw from the tree. The Greeks also ate the pituris, the small, immature olive gathered before ripening and pickled, as well as the kolumbas, mature pickled olive (sometimes combined with fennel), and the drypete¯s or gergerimos, the overripe olive. Ripe or pickled olives served as a snack food, as a welcoming dish expected by guests when visiting (along with bread, cheese, water, and so on), as an appetizer before meals, as a side dish, a second course (again with cheese, and onions), or part of the array of desserts or fruits during meals, and as an ingredient in various cooking recipes. Olive oil (elaion) perhaps mattered to the ancient Greeks even more than the olive fruit itself. Some sort of olive presses for the making of oil existed long before recorded history in the Greek world; by the Late Bronze Age, processing olives into oil in the Aegean region had become a major commercial endeavor, as the Mycenaean Greeks transported containers of their olive products across the Mediterranean. Greek family farmers in later periods crushed fresh olives with a mortar and pestle or with a stone roller in a stone basin. They would then don their special wooden sandals and tread the crushed olives underfoot to release the oil or gather the olives under a lever or weight press, in use at least by the sixth century BCE, for production on a larger scale. By the fourth century BCE, the rotary olive crusher, a device dating back in its original form perhaps to the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), was perfected. It consisted of a large stone bowl with a pivoting pair of hemispherical stone mortars spinning around its inside edges, like an upright vice.

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Later in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), the wedge press, likely a Greek invention but perfected by the Romans, was also employed in the process: the crushed fruit was placed under a series of parallel wooden beams suspended in a frame, the beams driven downward to press the olives by the forcible insertion of wedges between them. In the first century CE, the screw press, another Greek innovation, further improved productivity. So, for much of recorded Greek history, olive presses (elaiotribeia) produced the oil sold by professional elaiopoˉlai. Unlike most of today’s producers, the ancient Greeks made use of the early pickings from the olive tree to press their oil, which usually meant the quantity of the product was less but the quality was better. Olive oil was placed in stone vats to allow for the settling of impurities, then skimmed with ladles to separate the floating oil from the watery residue left over from processing; the Greeks also developed underflow vats in which the watery residue drained out through a spout, leaving the oil behind. The oil thus purified was stored in large terracotta containers (  pithoi or amphorae), where it could last for a long time. In most locales, olive oil became a staple of the diet and the economy, locally made and locally used. Some of the best oils traded widely, like fine oils from the island of Samos or the city-state of Thurii in southern Italy. Yet some places, even though famous for their olive trees and even for their numerous prizes of olive oil to victors in local festivals, like Attica, exported olive oil but never on as large a scale as others. A fragment from one of the plays by Menander of Athens in the fourth century BCE identified bread, meal from cereals, vinegar, and olive oil as the necessities of daily life. The ancient Greeks did make much use of olive oil, as a medium for cooking, as a dressing often mixed with vinegar, as a base for marinating or basting of meats (especially poultry), as an ingredient in recipes, and so on. They also greased themselves up with olive oil before exercising or competing in athletic events (especially wrestling bouts) and anointed themselves with olive oil after bathing and while sun-tanning. Many medicines had olive oil as a base, as did cosmetics, and it was burned inside oil lamps to produce artificial light. The sacredness of olives trees in many parts of Greece, like the moriai of the Academy at Athens, and the association of the olive with divine figures, like Athena, and heroic ones, like Heracles, speak to the significance of the olive in ancient Greek culture. Its essential status in the Greek diet and its sanctified character made olive oil an appropriate gift for the gods and the spirits of the deceased. The longevity of the olive tree formed the basis of its use as a symbol of peace, the condition required for that longevity, as the Athenians learned to their despair when they saw their enemies destroy their olive groves in wartime.

Food and Drink: Poisons and Toxic Foods

See also: Arts: Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Bread; Cooking; Dessert; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Grains; Meals; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Soups and Stews; Vegetables; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A., and S. Grainger. 1996. The Classical Cookbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drachmann, A.  G. 1932. Ancient Oil Mills and Presses. Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard. Eitam, D., and M. Heltzer, eds. 1987. Olive Oil in Antiquity. Padua: Sargon. Finley, M. I. 1973. The Ancient Economy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Foxhall, L. 1995. Olive Cultivation in Greek Farming. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frankel, R. 1999. Wine and Oil Production in Antiquity in Israel and Other Mediterranean Countries. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. E. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Morris, I., ed. 1994. Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slater, W. 1991. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

POISONS AND TOXIC FOODS The ancient Greeks utilized the same word, pharmakon, to mean medicine or poison. Indeed, their interest in pharmacology likely began in the search for antidotes (alexipharmaka) to poisonous substances. Over time, some of the most skilled physicians and apothecaries were enlisted by Greek governments to develop poisonous drugs that were made use of for dynastic and political purposes. The oldest poisons in the ancient Greek world would have been those found in nature; when ingested, they were discovered to cause either great sickness or

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even death. This was true of some species of mushrooms (muke¯tes), for example. The Athenian playwright Euripides once wrote a brief eulogy for a mother and her three children who had apparently died from ingesting poisonous mushrooms. Of other toxic plant substances, the Greeks utilized mullein (  phlomos), nightshade (strychnos), and meadow saffron (kolchinon, ephe¯meron). They were also aware of the narcotic, and potentially lethal, properties of the mandrake root (mandragoras) and the seeds or juice from the opium poppy (me¯koˉn). Indeed, Aristotle’s friend, the botanist Theophrastus, noted the varying effects of strychnos depending on the dosage, with a mild dose inducing giddiness and self-assuredness, a larger dose producing delusions, and a heavy dose causing death. Snake venom, certain spiders, beetles, caterpillars, toads, and fish, also generated poisons made use of in ancient times. Probably the most famous toxic substance from ancient Greek history came from the hemlock plant (koˉneion). The Athenians made use of the seeds and pith of this plant to produce a neurotoxin that paralyzed the vital organs; they administered it apparently mixed with wine or water to criminals sentenced to death, as in the case of the philosopher Socrates in 399 BCE. Some toxic substances did not sicken or kill but supposedly had other deleterious effects. Seed from the willow (itea), for example, was thought to produce infertility in those who ingested it. Still other substances, like wolf’s bane (akoniton), might be so concocted as to delay their lethal effects for months. For many generations, then, the private possession of poisons was regarded as a thing of suspicion. Moreover, Greek communities, like Teos in the early fifth century BCE, decreed the death penalty for those who used poisoning against its citizens and especially against its government officials. Perhaps this was why Theophrastus wrote that having such toxic substances on hand could land the possessor on death row. In Late Classical and Hellenistic times (that is, from the fourth century BCE onward), however, the desire to eliminate rivals through quiet assassination provided unique opportunities for those private individuals who possessed expertise in making poisons; the rise of powerful monarchies in the Greek world generated powerful rivalries over their thrones, typically among members of the same royal family, though sometimes from competing nobles. At the same time, the fear of assassination generated employment for those who could manufacture antidotes. Philip II, King of Macedon, acquired the nickname, “Wine Charon,” because of his predilection for sending enemies down to Hades by means of poisoned wine. It was said that Cleopatra VII of Egypt wore a hollowed-out hairpin that contained poison liquid, just in case she ever needed it! Indeed, she and Mithradates VI of Pontus apparently not only concocted and tested poisons, but even took nonlethal doses of them in order to build up immunity to their effects.

Food and Drink: Poisons and Toxic Foods

Entire treatises on poisons thus appeared in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE). The one on poisonous animals by Apollodorus of Alexandria in the early third century BCE became a standard consulted by generations of medical writers, physicians, and other interested parties. Nicander of Colophon, in the third or second centuries BCE, transformed Apollodorus’ work into poetic form for apparently the purpose of both entertainment and education; Nicander’s poetry enjoyed tremendous popularity and was quoted or imitated by many later authors. Even ancient Greek mythology had its own famous poisoners. Perhaps best remembered was Medea, Princess of Colchis, a consummate practitioner of all drug-related lore. When her husband Jason betrayed her by planning to abandon her for a “better” marriage to Princess Creusa of Corinth, Medea poisoned Creusa and her father Creon; later, when Medea had made her escape to Athens and arranged a new marriage there with King Aegeus, she attempted to poison her prodigal stepson, Prince Theseus, but was thwarted and forced to flee again. Poisons and toxic foods, then, held a particular fascination among the Greeks, just as they feared and attempted to mitigate the dangers of such things. Skill in poisoning placed one in the nebulous realm of medicine, botany, and magic, proving one’s cleverness, perhaps, but also potentially marking one as a threat to society. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Fishing; Trade; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Legumes; Olives and Olive Oil; Potions; Seafood; Vegetables; Wine; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Experimentation and Research; Geography; Medicine; Zoology FURTHER READING Baumann, H. 1993. Greek Wild Flowers and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. Translated by W. T. Stearn and E. R. Stearn. London: Herbert Press. Burford, A. 1972. Craftsmen in Greek and Roman Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fortenbaugh, W. W., P. Huby, et al., eds. 1992. Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought and Influence. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill. Fortenbaugh, W. W., and R. W. Sharples, eds. 1988. Theophrastean Studies. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University. Hankinson, R. J. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, H. 2001. Greek and Roman Medicine. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1973. Greek Science after Aristotle. New York: W. W. Norton.

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The World of Ancient Greece Majno, G. 1975. The Healing Hand. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Morton, A. G. 1981. History of Botanical Science. London: Academic Press. Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Raven, J. E. 2000. Plants and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. London: Leopard’s Press. Riddle, J. 1985. Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine. Austin: University of Texas Press. Scarborough, J. 1969. Roman Medicine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Scarborough, J. 1987. Folklore and Folk Medicines. Madison, WI: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy. Scarborough, J. 2010. Pharmacy and Drug Lore in Antiquity. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate.

POTIONS Certain foods or sources of food in the ancient Greek world were regarded as possessing not only medicinal but even magical properties. Consequently, individuals who sought to gain mastery over or to unduly influence others sometimes turned to particular foods or food sources that they concocted in some fashion and then arranged to be ingested by the person targeted. The most common of such concoctions was the magical love-potion (  philtron). In Greek society, a number of well-known myths circulated involving women who made use of philtra in ways that precipitated disastrous results. For instance, Deianeira, one of the wives of Heracles, out of jealousy and insecurity over her husband’s amorous feelings toward Princess Iole, tried to assure her husband’s love with a magic potion that she smeared on his cloak. She concocted this drug by mixing olive oil with the semen and blood of the Centaur Nessus, who had misled her years before into believing that his bodily fluids had magical love-enhancing power; in fact, they were tainted with the poison of the Hydra, with which Heracles’ own arrow had infected Nessus. So, Deianeira’s potion did not make Heracles love her more, but instead burned his flesh with such pain that he chose to end his own life through immolation; Deianeira then hanged herself! In another myth, Theseus’ wife Phaedra (bewitched by Aphrodite) fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus and planned to use some sort of philtron to win his affections. When this did not work, and the young man rejected her, she accused him of sexually harassing her and then committed suicide in her anguish. Theseus subsequently prayed for his own son’s destruction! Greek poets drew upon such traditions with new stories of their own. The Hellenistic poet Theocritus of Syracuse, for example, composed an idyll about a young woman from Cos named Simaetha who tried to punish through magic her neglectful former lover Delphis; among her collection of magic items were philtra. The outcome of her efforts remains untold. Cases of love-potions, usually leading to dire consequences, occurred in real life, too. The Athenian orator Antiphon once composed a prosecution speech for a young man whose stepmother had allegedly murdered his father by means of a

Food and Drink: Potions

supposed love-potion. The stepmother had convinced another woman (the concubine of the father’s friend) to administer the drug, which she did by giving a larger dose to her lover and a smaller dose to the young man’s father. The results were immediate death for the lover and a lingering death for the father. Even Greek medical writers described plants that were commonly utilized in making love-potions. Dioscorides provides an example with something known simply as katananke¯. This plant belonged to the legume family; its name means “force” or “compulsion.” Not all magical potions in the ancient Greek world were love-potions. In Homer’s Odyssey, for instance, the famous Helen reveals how she had learned from the Egyptians to use certain drugs (  pharmaka) in wine that would end one’s grief and anger and help one to forget one’s troubles; so powerful was her concoction that even the death of one’s parents would not affect the individual who consumed it. This sort of potion, then, numbed the emotions instead of enhancing them, and Helen gave it to her husband and his guests to soothe their despondency over memories of Greek losses in the Trojan War. Similarly, the goddess Circe concocted a form of kukeoˉn that contained drugs to make Odysseus’ men forget their homelands (and transform them into pigs). Fortunately, for Odysseus himself, the god Hermes warned him that Circe would concoct something like this for him and put drugs into his food; the ever-watchful hero thereby avoided the fate of his men. Apollonius of Rhodes told of how Princess Medea of Colchis, an accomplished sorceress according to Greek myth, had in her possession a pharmakon that would protect the one who anointed himself with it from any sort of wounding or burning for a whole day’s time; she provided this to her lover Jason. Medea had produced this marvel from a flower whose sappy root had grown from the blood of the Titan Prometheus. Not all potions in the ancient Greek world were magical. Physicians prescribed potions of a different kind (  pote¯mata, potima, brosima, pharmaka), which they concocted, of course, for the sake of their health-giving effects. This included such things as concoctions made from wine or the juice of apples or grapes as restoratives or purgatives, or liquefied rhizomes from the hellebore plant for relief from overeating, and so on. As the writings of the biographer Plutarch make clear, ancient Greek men believed that their women frequently turned to love-potions in order to enhance their romantic relationships; nowhere in ancient Greek literature are men accused of using such things. On the other hand, male physicians may have used some of the very same ingredients to create draughts for medicinal purposes. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Orators and Speechwriters; Trade; Family and Gender: Friendship and Love; Women; Food and Drink: Condiments and

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Seasonings; Olives and Olive Oil; Poisons and Toxic Foods; Wine; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Botany; Experimentation and Research; Medicine FURTHER READING Baumann, H. 1993. Greek Wild Flowers and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. Translated by W. T. Stearn and E. R. Stearn. London: Herbert Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fortenbaugh, W.W., P. Huby, et al., eds. 1992. Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought and Influence. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill. Hankinson, R. J. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, H. 2001. Greek and Roman Medicine. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1973. Greek Science after Aristotle. New York: W. W. Norton. Morton, A. G. 1981. History of Botanical Science. London: Academic Press. Raven, J. E. 2000. Plants and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. London: Leopard’s Press. Riddle, J. 1985. Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine. Austin: University of Texas Press. Scarborough, J. 1987. Folklore and Folk Medicines. Madison, WI: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy. Scarborough, J. 2010. Pharmacy and Drug Lore in Antiquity. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate.

POULTRY, BIRDS, AND EGGS The ancient Greeks did not eat nearly as many eggs or as much krea ornitheia, “the meat of winged creatures,” as modern people do. Nevertheless, whether raised in the farm or brought home from the hunt, poultry and wild fowl, and the eggs they produced, did provide important sources of protein and fat in the diets of many ancient Greeks. Chickens (ornithia), descended from bantam breeds originally found in India, came to Greece at least by the sixth century BCE, as evidenced by the poet Theognis, through trade contacts within the Persian Empire. That is why the playwright Aristophanes referred to the chicken in contemporary slang as the “Persian bird” (Persikos ornis). By Classical times (490–323 BCE), the island of Rhodes had become famous for its breeds of chicken, as had the city-state of Chalcis on the island of Euboea and the city-state of Tanagra in the Peloponnese. The island of Delos also acquired quite a reputation for its very successful poultry farms. When they ate chicken, the Greeks preferred young hens and castrated roosters. Yet they never consumed chicken as much as goose (che¯n), both wild and domesticated. Noted as far back as the poet Homer in his Odyssey, geese, like chickens, were allowed to forage for themselves for the most part; only occasionally did

Food and Drink: Poultry, Birds, and Eggs

Greek farmers provide feed for them, usually grain. This made them exceptionally economical, and there were always wild geese that one could capture and raise as well for their meat or eggs. Greeks going back to earliest times practiced fowling (ornithothe¯ra), the capturing of wild birds (agriornithai) for sport and for food. Scholars know most about Greek fowling from Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), when Greek hunters used snares, nets, cages, pits, traps, bait, decoys, and sticky substances (like limecoated twigs) to catch a very wide variety of wild birds, including blackbird (kossuphos, kopsichos), cuckoo (kokkux), dove (  phassa, trugoˉ n), francolin (attage¯n), hazel grouse (tetraoˉn), jackdaw (koloios), jay (kissa), owl (glaux), partridge (  perdix), pheasant (tatarus, tetrax), quail (ortux), skylark (  piphinx), thrush (kichle¯), wagtail (boudute¯s), and wood pigeon (  peristera, peleia). Of waterfowl besides the graylag goose, they pursued especially coots (  phaleres), cranes (geranoi), mallards (ne¯ssai), pelicans (  pelekanes), swans (kuknoi), and teals (boskai). If one was not inclined to fowling or did not have the time or resources to do so, professional fowlers (donakeis, ixeutai, ornitheutai, ornithotherai, ornitholoxoi), or merchants associated with them, also sold these animals whole in the marketplaces of the ancient Greek world for anyone to purchase. Such merchants even imported birds from abroad, like guinea fowl (meleagris) from Africa, for example.

Terracotta deep-drinking cup, or skyphos, c. 500 BCE. Athenians, across a wide range of classes, kept roosters, geese, herons, and, as in this image, guinea fowl on their properties to provide them with meat and supplement their largely grain-based diet. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1941)

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Ancient Greek farmers frequently developed peristereoˉnes, dovecotes and pigeon lofts, in which they raised wild birds from their eggs for their own use and for sale to others. By Hellenistic times, full-blown aviaries (ornithoboskeia) were in operation where all sorts of “wild” fowl were reared by professionals in order to supply food for sale and animals for use in leisure activities, like hunting expeditions. The Greeks do not seem to have fried the meat of feathered creatures, but rather preferred to boil them in pieces or roast them whole and sometimes to stuff them. Greek cooks also reduced the livers of some of these animals, particularly the goose, into a paste which could be eaten with bread, just like the paté de foie gras known to modern gourmets. There were regional specialties as well; northern Greeks in Thessaly and Macedon, for example, liked to create a hash out of poultry or wild fowl and other meats, flavored with herbs, and served cold as a dessert called mattue¯. The ancients seem to have eaten the eggs (oˉia) from just about all the wild fowl that they caught and the domesticated poultry that they raised. The most popular eggs came from geese and quail. Eggs were typically boiled, soft or hard, and served as an appetizer with other seasonings, relishes, onions, nuts, or cheese, as well as part of the first course at dinner and as part of the dessert. Of course, then as now, eggs, or the parts of eggs, were also a key ingredient in many recipes. The ancient Greeks may not have eaten as many eggs or as much “bird meat” as modern people, but they certainly consumed a very wide variety of such eggs and meat, a wider variety than is typically common, say, among modern Americans. Again, such foods provided a crucial supplement to the basic ancient Greek diet of cereals. See also: Arts: Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Soups and Stews; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Anderson, J. K. 1985. Hunting in the Ancient World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Barringer, J. M. 2001. The Hunt in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Food and Drink: Seafood Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kalof, L., ed. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg. Pollard, J. 1977. Birds in Greek Life and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

SEAFOOD Since so many of their communities lay close to the sea or to bodies of fresh water or rivers, a wide variety of seafood found its way into the fish markets (ichthuopoˉleia or simply hoi ichthus, “the fishes”) of the ancient Greek world. Greek fishermen harvested large quantities of aquatic life daily, so the average Greek diet tended to contain much seafood. Among the fish caught in their territories, the ancient Greeks ate especially anchovies (engraulis, trichis, aphue¯, membras), bass (labrax), bream (kantharos, melanouros, mormuros, sparos), mackerel (trachouros, auloˉpias), mullet (abramis, kestreus, trigla), sardines (sardai), sprats (mainides), sturgeon (akkipe¯sios), tuna (thunnos), and wrasse (ioulis, kirris, kossuphos, skaros). Greeks also enjoyed octopus (  polupous) and squid (teuthis), mussels (mus), oysters (ostrea), clams (che¯mai) and limpet (lepas), lobster (astakos, karabos) and prawn (karis), eel (engeleus), dogfish (akanthias, leios, poikilos, skumnos), and ray (batis). Crustaceans and mollusks, as well as eels, Greek cooks tended to boil or steam. They were more versatile when preparing fish. Of course, they boiled fish to make soups, but most was roasted or fire-grilled, for instance when they made tuna steaks or charred mullet, sometimes basted with vinegar. They also fried fish in a pan (especially anchovies) or baked it in a clay pot smothered in hot ashes. They sometimes stuffed baked fish with various herbs. The Greeks removed the bones from larger fish (like mackerel), but usually left them in with smaller species (like sprats or sardines). Indeed, sometimes they did not cook their fish at all, but instead pickled it (tuna, for example) in brine to disinfect it and make it palatable. The ancient Greeks also served fish in a variety of ways; a favorite seems to have been to place the prepared fish on a bed of cooked grains or grits. In the case of tuna, they might season it with heavy garlic or roast its intestines; in the case of sturgeon, they ate its eggs as salted caviar.

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Just like today, dried and salted fish (tarichos) was a very popular food among the ancient Greeks; they probably consumed more dried and salted fish than fresh fish. The typical method involved placing layers of fish and salt alternately in large terracotta containers and weighing down the contents to speed the curing process. Indeed, they even had markets (tarichopoˉleia) especially dedicated to the sale of such fish, which gives us an indication of the level of its consumption and of its abundance. Fish frequently served in that part of the ancient Greek meal known as opson, which we translate as relishes or side Terracotta fish-plate, or pinakion, from Campania dishes. Likely out of this tradin southern Italy, c. 350–325 BCE. Ancient Greeks ition of having a little seafood often ate their seafood off special plates designed specifically for that purpose. Artists like the mixed or placed with other small Helgoland Painter, to whom scholars attribute this morsels emerged the fish sauce, piece, captured in great detail the sorts of seafood garos, consisting of fermented that Greeks consumed, such as the bream, torpedo fish in brine, eaten by the Greeks fish, scallops, mussels, murex, and shrimp pictured here. The center of the dish is slightly hollowed as early as the fifth century BCE; to allow for the placement of dipping sauce or the Romans later became famous other condiments to have with the seafood. (The for their mass manufacturing of Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1906) this liquamen or garum. Greek dishware from Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE) was often painted with an image of a cup of fish sauce. Seafood came into ancient Greek kitchens from all across the Aegean region (such as anchovies from Attica or Rhodes, oysters from Abydos, clams from Ephesus, or eels from Lake Copais in Boeotia). It was even imported from as far away as the Greek and Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean; the island of Lipara off the northern coast of Sicily, for instance, was famed for its anchovies. Still, the Black Sea (especially Sinope, famed for its mullet) and the waterways around the Greek city-state of Byzantium (famed for its tuna) remained the greatest

Food and Drink: Seafood

sources of seafood. In fact, from early in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) the town of Dioscurias on the eastern coast of the Black Sea became the curing center, with seafood-pickling processing on a large scale. The poet Homer, and many Greek authors long after him, may have characterized seafood as the fare of poor people, and religious-philosophical sects like the Pythagoreans may have objected to the eating of certain species, but there is no doubt that seafood contributed in a very crucial way to the dietary health of most ancient Greeks. Moreover, even when they did not have access to fresh seafood, they had available dried, salted, or pickled varieties that could help them survive lean years in agriculture or stock raising. Fish served as a key ingredient in certain ritual meals, as on the island of Samothrace, as it did elsewhere in sacrifices to Hecate, Artemis, and other deities. Seafood was so favored by many Greeks that they even came up with a slang term, philichthus, to describe someone who was just crazy about eating fish, and such persons were usually high-class gourmands in the world of the ancient Greeks! See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Fishing; Food and Drink: Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Soups and Stews; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Leisure Activities; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Bekker-Nielsen, T., ed. 2005. Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Campbell, G. L., ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kalof, L., ed. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg. Radcliffe, W. 1974. Fishing from the Earliest Times. Chicago: Ares. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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SEASONINGS. See CONDIMENTS AND SEASONINGS SOUPS AND STEWS The ancient Greeks enjoyed many foods roasted, but they often paired such foods with broth (zoˉmos), soup (zoˉmos, zoˉmeuma), or stew (  pnigmos, pniktos). Although elite authors frequently criticized those who lived on such “liquid” foods, they, too, certainly partook in them as well and seem to have regarded them as signature dishes of their culture, whether “common” or not. Various kinds of meat served as key ingredients. For example, the Greeks made broth from cuts of pork, lamb, or mutton. The Spartans were especially famous (or perhaps infamous would be a better word) for their black broth (melas zoˉmos), consisting of vinegar, salt, pig’s blood, and pork legs; they might eat this as a side dish with fish or meat, but they also consumed it alone as a sign of their “toughness.” The flesh or entrails of pig, sheep, goat, or cow were boiled to make meat soup (kreadia ezoˉmeumena) or meat stew (kreas anabraston). Ancient Greeks seem to have been particularly fond of soups containing pork legs or hams and stews containing cuts of kid goat. Besides meat from domesticated animals, the Greeks also used seafood, fowl or poultry, and other wild animals as ingredients in their soups and stews. For instance, they enjoyed stews made from eels, from salt-fish, and from wild birds, especially thrushes. A popular dish consisted of eels (especially eels from Lake Copais in Boeotia) stewed with beets. Axionicus, a Middle Comedy poet from the late fourth century BCE, described a soup consisting of fish, pig’s feet and pig’s ears, seasoned with asafetida. A soup made from wild hares, known as mimarkus, contained noticeable amounts of the animals’ blood for flavor. The ancient Greeks also cooked poultry for their soups, but no explicit mention of chicken soup appears in any extant sources, likely because chicken was not that commonly consumed in ancient times. The Greeks sometimes poured their soups of kid goat, or lamb, or poultry over grits (chondroi) or peeled barley (  ptisane¯). This reminds us that vegetables, grains, and legumes also served as key ingredients in ancient Greek broths and soups. A rather bitter tasting but vitamin-packed soup called hypotrimma or phylladis was made from green herbs. Broth from boiled barley, known as epikta, was a very typical dish in most Greek homes. A very popular soup called bolbophake¯ contained the bulbs of the purse tassel (tassel hyacinth) and lentils (  phake¯). Soups made with lentils, though looked down upon by upper-class authors, were the most common for the majority of people in ancient Greek communities; lentil soup (konchion) and a piece of sausage were considered to constitute a hearty meal for someone who worked outside all day. Physicians of the Hippocratic tradition even

Food and Drink: Soups and Stews

prescribed simple lentil soup to relieve the pain of ulcers and to help reduce the causes of hemorrhoids. Besides lentils, a very filling soup was made from loboi, something akin to modern kidney beans. The Greeks also concocted a thick soup called etnos from peas (  pisos, “garden pea” or lathyros, “grass pea”) or legumes or made a porridge called lekithos from such ingredients. Soups were such a typical food in the ancient Greek world that the Greeks even had a word, mustile¯, for the pieces of bread they deliberately hollowed out to serve as spoons with which to sop up one’s soup; they never wanted to leave even the slightest bit of soup behind in their bowls! Moreover, at least according to the Old Comedian Aristophanes in the late fifth century BCE, gluttons could be labeled as “soup crazy,” yet another indication of the ubiquity of broth, soup, and stews in ancient Greek meals. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Fishing; Food and Drink: Bread; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Grains; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Poultry, Birds, and Eggs; Seafood; Vegetables; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Leisure Activities; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Medicine FURTHER READING Anderson, J. K. 1985. Hunting in the Ancient World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Bekker-Nielsen, T., ed. 2005. Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Campbell, G. L., ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kalof, L., ed. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg. Pollard, J. 1977. Birds in Greek Life and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson. Radcliffe, W. 1974. Fishing from the Earliest Times. Chicago: Ares. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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STEWS. See SOUPS AND STEWS TOXIC FOODS. See POISONS AND TOXIC FOODS VEGETABLES The Homeric heroes of legend were remembered as eating always meat and never vegetables, while aristocratic and wealthy Greeks of historical times displayed disdain for meals that consisted primarily of vegetables. Nevertheless, the consuming of such food was crucial in the ancient Greek diet, whether for the elite or for the common people, for it provided many of the vitamins and minerals essential for good health and survival. Of the leafy greens, the ancient Greeks ate lettuce (thridax, thridakine¯), kale (kaulos, krambe¯), rocket/arugula (euzoˉmon), rue (  pe¯ganon), spinach (spanakon), and cabbage (krambe¯, rhaphanos), especially cabbage. Greek medical writers and gourmets recommended lettuce from Smyrna in western Anatolia as the best, while the most renowned cabbage (known to the Greeks in at least three varieties) came from Cyme, Ephesus, and Cnidus, all in western Anatolia, as well as Eretria on the island of Euboea and from the island of Rhodes. Medical writers advised that the darker varieties of lettuce were better for you, while gourmets said that the whiter varieties were better tasting and tenderer. All the leafy greens were regarded as good for the digestion, especially lettuce, and even the stalks of the plants were eaten. Although the ancient Greeks consumed any of these vegetables fresh, boiling was more common because the varieties grown by ancient farmers produced chewy, tough leaves, even in the case of lettuce. Boiling greens would, thus, have taken much longer than it does today. Some leafy greens were also roasted, as in the case of cabbage, and often served alongside pea porridge or soup in the homes of average Greek country or city folk. Of the root vegetables familiar today, the ancient Greeks ate the turnip (rhapus, gastraia), the radish (rhaphanis), the beet (teutlon), the parsnip (keraskome¯, daukos), and the carrot (staphulinos, karoˉton). Again, the varieties of these vegetables planted by the Greeks produced tougher and smaller roots than the varieties farmed today; the ancient Greeks ate much chewier radishes, for instance, than their modern counterparts do. As a result, the Greeks consumed the immature plants for their leaves even more than the roots of the mature plants. Turnips from the territory of Thebes in central Greece were regarded as the best of their kind and Boeotian radishes were regarded as the sweetest to the taste. Ancient Greek cooks roasted turnips, sometimes in slices, and also pickled them for eating; they mixed chopped up beets with mincemeat to make stuffing or boiled

Food and Drink: Vegetables

beets with mustard. Carrot greens were eaten boiled, while carrots themselves were regarded more as a medicinal food. Of the vegetables eaten today for their stalks, flower heads, or shoots, the ancient Greeks ate the artichoke (kinara, kynaros, skolumos), celery (selinon), and asparagus (muakanthos, aspharagos), as well as cauliflower (kaulos). They picked artichokes when still immature and boiled them whole before peeling them apart for eating. Celery was grown for its leaves rather than its stalks, since the varieties planted by Greek farmers produced stalks that were often too tough. Asparagus and celery were both prescribed for medicinal purposes. Of vegetables grown on the vine, the ancient Greeks ate especially the cucumber (sikuos) and the gourd (sikua, kolokunte¯) in an array of varieties. Gourmets recommended cucumbers from Antioch, Magnesia, or Sparta as the best. The Greeks liked to eat their cucumbers and gourds roasted or boiled, the gourds cooked with mustard; they sometimes sliced the fruit, air-dried and smoked the slices to preserve them, and then ate them even out of season. Of course, cucumbers were also eaten fresh and, just as in the Mediterranean region today, the ancients ate the flowers from gourd plants as well as the fruit itself. Onions (krommua, bolbinai), garlic (skorodon), leek (  prason), parsley (selinon), and fennel (marathon) were not just used as seasoning, but boiled and eaten as dishes themselves. In fact, the Greeks boiled the leaves, stems, and bulbs of these vegetables for eating; the bulbs of the onion and the garlic tended to be on the small side because of the varieties grown. Onions from Megara and Samothrace were highly praised and onions in general were considered nutritious and good for the stomach. Everyday Greeks consumed entire dishes of onions, often roasted whole under hot ashes. They also mixed onions with leek, cheese, honey, olive oil, sesame, and vinegar to create a more complex meal and even mixed onions into their wine to give the latter an extra bite. Fennel also figured prominently in the ancient Greek diet, with fennel seeds collected for seasonings and fennel bulbs, stalks, and fronds for boiling. The Greeks mixed fennel with their pickled olives for added flavor. The Greeks did a lot of pickling of vegetables to preserve them for those months when certain farm-fresh crops were out of season. For instance, they steeped onions or leafy greens in salt brine or in vinegar, as they did with many herbs. Since the cucumbers they grew tended to be on the bitter side, the Greeks preferred to eat them pickled. Just as their modern descendants do, so did the ancient Greeks supplement their diet by collecting plants and other edible items from the wild. They enjoyed wild mushrooms (muke¯tes), roasted and sometimes dressed with honey, vinegar, or salt. They also ate lots of wild chicory (seirikon, chondrile¯), boiled or roasted and prepared like any other green. All sorts of vegetables, then, were consumed by the ancient Greeks as part of their everyday life. Some they farm-raised, some they harvested out in the wild,

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and some they imported from across their own territories and beyond. In any case, they invested considerable effort, time, and resources in the production and acquisition of vegetables. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Landownership; Food and Drink: Bread; Condiments and Seasonings; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Hospitality; Hunting and Wild Game; Meals; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Soups and Stews; Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

VEGETARIANISM The eating of animal flesh, whether in the form of the muscle tissues or internal organs of animals, was a custom commonplace in the ancient Greek world. Indeed, religious practices among most Greeks demanded that they regularly sacrifice their best animals to the gods, at which times the participants would partake in feasts of meat. Yet most Greeks lived largely vegetarian lives because of the expense involved in raising animals for slaughter. Some few Greeks went further, mainly those inspired by particular philosophical sects, and rejected the eating of animal flesh altogether. Today, we would refer to them as vegetarians. Chief among the vegetarians of the ancient Greek world were the followers of Pythagoras, the philosopher-mathematician of the sixth century BCE. His study of mathematics had taught Pythagoras that the number one is the origin of all other numbers and of all equations; the universe, he believed, was built upon the number one and operated according to the rational rules of mathematics. It seemed inconceivable to Pythagoras that any rational being, cognizant of mathematics, like

Food and Drink: Vegetarianism

humans, could ever be truly destroyed in such a universe. He speculated, instead, that the souls of human beings must continue to circulate among the living, passing on or transmigrating after the death of the body into the bodies of newborn humans as well as the bodies of newborn animals. Several Greek authors recorded that, as a consequence, to eat the flesh of animals, or, at least, certain types of animals, became unthinkable to Pythagoras. So, it came to be held by many Greeks that Pythagoras advocated vegetarianism; modern scholars are divided on just how strict his prohibitions against eating meat were because the extant evidence contains contradictions. According to the Late Classical philosopher and author Aristoxenus of Tarentum, who wrote biographies and other works on Pythagoras and some of his followers, they ate honey and bread as their main meal and even abstained from fava beans (because they believed that these, too, might contain transmigrated human souls). The Middle Comedian Alexis of Athens mentions in one of his plays (Pythagorean Women) that the followers of Pythagoras ate figs, grapes, and cheese, but no fish; he perhaps exaggerated when he claimed that they lived on one loaf of bread and one cup of water a day, and maybe a measure of wheat meal every five days! Many have noted how Pythagoras’s ideas bear close resemblance to teachings in the Hindu tradition. Some influence from that tradition is possible, considering that the Persian Empire had opened up travel and trade routes across the Middle East from India to Greece. Regardless of what foreign influences there may have been on his thinking, the notions of Pythagoras spread across the ancient Greek world wherever sects of Pythagoreans formed and eventually became at least a topic for discussion, if not a way of life, for those in other philosophical movements, like the fifth-century BCE cosmologist Empedocles and the third-century CE Neo-Platonist Porphyry, and those who drew eclectically from various movements, like the second-century CE biographer and author Plutarch. Empedocles described his own recollections of supposedly previous lifetimes, as had Pythagoras. He evidently asserted that human spirits were imprisoned in flesh as a punishment for murder, flesh-eating, and cannibalism in their very earliest history. He further developed the notion that one’s deceased father, mother, or friend may be trapped inside an animal set for slaughter. Eating animal flesh was, then, just another form of cannibalism that would only cause further injury to the human spirit. Porphyry composed a work (“On Abstinence from Killing Animals”) against the eating or even the sacrificing of animals because of their possession of rationality and sense of justice. He referred to animals as kindred souls; humans do not eat unjust men, so they should not even eat “unjust” (that is, dangerous) animals, let alone the harmless (domesticated) ones. Justice means causing no harm,

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period—and this includes no harm to any living things. So Porphyry urged his readers to increase their inward goodness by managing their bodies and especially the desires of their bodies. He further utilized Hesiod’s story of the Golden Age to prove that life was more moral under non-carnivores, and he discussed Lycurgus’ restrictions on meat consumption in Sparta that generated standards of frugality and, indeed, abstemiousness to great benefit there. Porphyry pointed out how abstention from animal flesh was mandated among various Greek priesthoods and especially within the mysteries; the hero Triptolemus had instructed humans not to injure animals but to practice agriculture. He described also Egyptian, Jewish, Persian, Indian, and other culturally tied practices of abstention from meats. All these indicated to Porphyry that those who had a closer connection to the divine were vegetarian. To mingle fruit with human life thus seemed appropriate, but to mingle the dead bodies of animals with human life seemed an abomination. A number of essays in the collection we call Moralia reveal Plutarch’s support for vegetarianism. Indeed, in his essay entitled “Beasts are Rational,” he asserted through the pig-man character Gryllus that animals possess naked courage, display genuine valor, “prefer” death to enslavement to men, are more temperate than humans especially in terms of sexuality, nor omnivorous like humans nor insatiable like them, and are more intelligent because taught exclusively by Nature as well as being quite capable of learning “silly things” from humans. Humans do not need to eat animals; they have plenty else to satisfy their appetites. Plutarch’s strongest defense of vegetarianism comes in his essay “On the Eating of Animal Flesh.” Here he asserted that eating meat may have been acceptable, and understandable, for human beings at the dawn of their history, but for civilized people of his own time to continue to do so, with such an abundance of agricultural produce on hand, could perhaps be seen as a disgrace, worthy only of beasts of prey, and an insult to the deities of fertility. He went on to say that humans are not built to be carnivores like other predators (not being armed with claws, or proper digestive tracts, or even the right sort of teeth for such behavior); he challenged the defender of meat eating to attack and kill an animal barehanded and eat the meat raw without any technological assistance. If humans could do this easily, then it would be natural for them to eat animal flesh, Plutarch avers. On top of that, he said, people cook meat as if they were embalming a corpse, which certainly does not seem like a “natural” thing to do. In Plutarch’s view, the human body might benefit from meat eating, but the spirit does not; this he derived from the teachings of Empedocles and from the ancient myth of Zagreus and the Titans. The message against eating the flesh of living things appeared clearly there. Flesh-eating, Plutarch asserted, has also led to gluttony, incontinence, and an excessive desire for pleasure among humans,

Food and Drink: Vegetarianism

all vicious traits worthy of abandonment to purify one’s spirit. He went further in describing the acts of cruelty committed against animals before their slaughter to demonstrate that humans torture their livestock before eating them rather than eating their flesh out of justifiable hunger or necessity. According to Plutarch, animals have their own senses and intelligence, of which human beings cheat them through slaughter. Moreover, transmigration theories, like those of Pythagoras and Empedocles, should give humans additional pause before killing the souls inside animals. Instead, he asserted, humans become insensitive to killing and brutality through the willful slaughter of animals, which then transfers to their treatment of fellow human beings. Plutarch pursued this strong association even further in his “On the Cleverness of Animals,” where he insisted that humans need to habituate themselves to acts of compassion rather than destruction; treating animals as agreeable servants instead of targets for violence would help in this regard. Stoic philosophers (like Claudius the Neapolitan who wrote any essay against abstinence from animal food) defended the slaughtering of animals, deriving their argument from Aristotle’s notion that animals are devoid of rationality and therefore deserve no justice from humans. Plutarch even took this perspective to task by turning the ethical principles of the Stoics against them; since they themselves insisted on giving up perfumes and fancy delicacies to reduce the “pleasures of the flesh,” Plutarch insisted that they give up meat, too, the most expensive and unneeded element of any meal! The Pythagorean concept of vegetarianism thus generated quite a bit of controversy in the ancient Greek world. Philosophical writers took it seriously, whether they were for or against it; writers of theatrical comedy did not. The playwright Alexis, for instance, spoke of Pythagoreans as supposedly eating no living thing and not even drinking wine, but also accused a number of them as being hypocrites who consumed dog meat to avoid other sorts of flesh; his contemporary colleague, Antiphanes of Athens, poked fun at the Pythagoreans quite a bit in his plays, asserting that they were only vegetarians when there was no meat to be had, that they chewed on salty food and garbage, and even peeled the husks off of barley kernels to eat them. Strict vegetarianism in the Pythagorean style may never have caught on widely in their world, but it certainly left a lasting impression on the culture of the Greeks. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Second Sophistic Movement; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Food and Drink: Bread; Cooking; Famine and Food Supply; Hunting and Wild Game; Legumes; Meals; Meat; Nutrition and Malnutrition; Vegetables; Politics and Warfare: Spartan Constitution; Recreation

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and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Olympic Games; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Botany; Cosmology; Medicine; Zoology FURTHER READING Arbuckle, B.  S., and S.  A. McCarty, eds. 2014. Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. Brothwell, D., and P. Brothwell. 1998. Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Campbell, G., ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London and New York: Routledge. Dombrowski, D. 1984. The Philosophy of Vegetarianism. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Howe, T. 2008. Pastoral Politics: Animals, Agriculture and Society in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Isager, S., and J. Skydsgaard. 1992. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Kalof, L. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg. O’Brien, D. 1969. Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer, C. The Heretic’s Feast: A History of Vegetarianism. Hanover, NH and London: University Press of New England. Wilkins, J. M., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. 1995. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wilkins, J. M., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

WINE In one of the oldest of Greek legends, their wisest of heroes, Odysseus of Ithaca, encountered Polyphemus, a barbaric, uncivilized creature who had never before tasted wine. True to the historical reality of what ancient Greeks did when they traded with or settled near foreign peoples, the mythical Odysseus introduced wine to the Cyclops. It should not surprise us, then, that the ancient Greeks considered the production and drinking of wine (oinos) as hallmarks of civilized life.

Food and Drink: Wine

Although production of wine from grapes went back long before their history (likely back into Neolithic times, in fact), the ancient Greeks certainly became some of the greatest masters of that art. The typical method went something like this. When the vines had formed clusters to their liking in terms of size and color, Greek farmers twisted the stems of the clusters to cut them off from further sap and allow the juices in the clusters to concentrate. After gathering the fully ripe grapes by hand from their vineyards, they left the fruit out in the sun for a certain period of time, which would “cook” the juices inside. Then, they treaded the grapes underfoot or crushed them by pressure (using a lever and drum, or later the screw press or the wedge press). The juice thus released was filtered through wickerwork basketry to separate the must from the wine juice; the latter was collected in terracotta containers (often quite large pithoi) coated in terebinth resin, which prevented the growth of harmful bacteria. The stored wine was then allowed to ferment with or without pomace, which, along with the grape variety, would determine the shade that the wine would eventually take. The ancient Greeks produced reds, whites, and ambers; Greek authors spoke of red wines as the most nutritious and least intoxicating. Bottled in terracotta amphorae or in skins made from animal hide, the wine would be kept ready for use or transported as part of trade. As it was in several neighboring cultures (like the Egyptians), wine among the Greeks seems to have been a beverage reserved for their elite until the Classical Age (490–323 BCE). From that time period onward, wine came to be an everyday drink for every class of Greek, as well as a special occasion beverage for their private parties (symposia) and their public celebrations (religious festivals). Even little ancient Greek children drank wine, as little children still do across the Mediterranean region today. Naturally, Greeks had different preferences regarding their wines; some preferred younger wines, others finer wines, and the range of consumer tastes seems to have only increased in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE). Still, a general standard across Greek culture seems to have been a combination of strength (about 15 percent alcohol content) and sweetness, that is, a general preference for long-aged wines. Greek medical writers validated this preference by advising the drinking of older wines as invigorating, as best for digestion, and as remedies for various illnesses. Indeed, ancient Greeks were known to have cooked their wine or their grape must as a syrupy additive for fortifying “weaker” wines. They also discovered a rapid method of aging wines by exposing them to a lot of direct sunlight or placing wine containers close to a roaring hearth fire. Sometimes they even fermented the grape must, typically saved to produce a nonalcoholic beverage as well. The ancient Greeks considered it uncivilized to drink wine straight or neat. Instead, as a regular custom, they mixed wine with so many parts of water. We read of the weakest mixture at four parts water to one part wine, moderate mixtures

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at three parts to one part or five parts to two parts, and the strongest mixture at two parts water to three parts wine. Mixing of the wine and water, in a special vessel called a krate¯r, became a regular custom at many meals, especially at the after-dinner symposion. Moreover, though they did not know the microscopic reasons for it, the Greeks also understood that it was sometimes safer to mix wine with water in order to make the latter potable or simply to drink wine rather than water. The predecessors of the Greeks in the Aegean region, the people scholars call Minoans, as well as the neighbors of the Greeks in western Anatolia, added honey to their wines to increase Terracotta mixing bowl, or krate¯r, from Paestum, sweetness, barley to increase southern Italy, depicting two young men in starchiness, and various herbs or conversation, c. 350–325 BCE. The ancient Greeks rarely drank their wine neat, instead mixing wine spices, such as saffron, to enhance with large quantities of water in a vessel like this the flavor. The Greeks picked up one, out of which the beverage would have been on this practice, flavoring some of ladled for drinking at a symposion or other social occasion. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) their wines. For example, on the island of Cos, people added seawater to their wines to produce greater smoothness of texture and taste, while on the island of Thasos those who made wine for the government officials to drink placed a honey dough in the wine containers, which infused the wine with multiple flavors. Although wine-making took place in every Greek territory, particular places earned notoriety for the excellence of their wines. Highly valued wines came from Mende, Cos, Chios, Lesbos, Samos, Thera, Rhodes, and Thasos; Chian wines (especially a type called Aryusian) earned perhaps the greatest praise from Greek poets through the ages. Reputedly harsher wines came from places like Corinth and the island of Euboea. Yet even those places with reputations for the finest products, like the island of Rhodes, still made low-grade wine for volume sale to consumers of mass quantities, like mercenaries and such. Amphorae containing such wine were also precisely stamped to alert the buyer to the freshness of the product and its likely early expiration, usually one year after bottling.

Food and Drink: Wine

Many producers and their governments stamped their amphorae to verify the quality of the wine they contained. We know of elaborate regulations that tightly controlled production and export of wine from Thasos in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE. Greek wines retained their status as the premium beverage among their Roman conquerors, who themselves produced many fine vintages of their own. It should come as no surprise, then, that the famous Roman gourmand of the first century BCE, L. Licinius Lucullus, once imported 100,000 amphorae of Greek wine for his estates in Italy! The Romans shared with the Greeks a prejudice against beer, something they felt only “barbarians” consumed. The Greeks also knew other alcoholic beverages distilled from wine as far back as the fifth century BCE, but that sort of drink did not really catch on until the Islamic period nearly a thousand years later. This should not surprise us considering the cultural significance that wine attained as the beverage among the ancient Greeks. Nearly every Greek author had something to say about wine. After all, the Greeks regarded it as a special gift from the god Dionysus; indeed, when they drank wine, many believed they were actually consuming Dionysus himself, allowing him to enter their bodies and their minds. See also: Arts: Gold and Silver; Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Trade; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Drunkenness; Feasts and Banquets; Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils; Meals; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Libations and Offerings FURTHER READING Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill. Frankel, R. 1999. Wine and Oil Production in Antiquity in Israel and Other Mediterranean Countries. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Lambert-Gocs, M. 1990. The Wines of Greece. New York: Faber and Faber. McGovern, P. E. 2003. Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McGovern, P. E., S. J. Fleming, and S. H. Katz, eds. 1996. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine. London: Gordon and Breach. Seltman, C. T. 1957. Wine in the Ancient World. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Unwin, T. 2005. Wine and the Vine. London and New York: Routledge. Wilson, C. A. 2006. Water of Life: A History of Wine-Distilling and Spirits, 500 BC–AD 2000. London: Prospect Books. Younger, W. 1966. Gods, Men, and Wine. Dumfermline, U.K.: The Wine and Food Society.

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Recent Titles in Daily Life Encyclopedias The World of Ancient Rome: A Daily Life Encyclopedia James W. Ermatinger The World of the Civil War: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Lisa Tendrich Frank, Editor The World of the American Revolution: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Merril D. Smith, Editor The World of Ancient Egypt: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Peter Lacovara The World of the American West: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Gordon Morris Bakken, Editor The World of Renaissance Italy: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Joseph P. Byrne The World of Antebellum America: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Alexandra Kindell, Editor The World of the Crusades: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Andrew Holt The World of Jim Crow America: A Daily Life Encyclopedia Steven A. Reich, Editor

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HOUSING AND COMMUNITY TO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The World of Ancient Greece A Daily Life Encyclopedia

Michael Lovano

Daily Life Encyclopedias

Copyright © 2020 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lovano, Michael, author. Title: The world of ancient Greece : a daily life encyclopedia / Michael Lovano. Description: First edition. | Santa Barbara, California : Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC [2020] | Series: Daily life encyclopedias | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019014386 (print) | LCCN 2019015427 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440837319 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440837302 (set : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440849404 (volume 1) | ISBN 9781440849411 (volume 2) Subjects: LCSH: Greece—Civilization—To 146 B.C.—Encyclopedias. | Greece—Social life and customs—Encyclopedias. Classification: LCC DF16 (ebook) | LCC DF16 .L68 2020 (print) | DDC 938.003—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019014386 ISBN: 978-1-4408-3730-2 (set) 978-1-4408-4940-4 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-4941-1 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-3731-9 (ebook) 24 23 22 21 20  1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available as an eBook. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 www.abc-clio.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

To Vince and Joe I could never have asked for brothers more true, my own personal Castor and Pollux, whose love and support have inspired me in so many of the achievements in my life, whose tenacious encouragement has helped this project come to fruition. And to my nephew Simoni, the most Greek of them all!

Contents

Preface, xv Introduction, xvii Chronology, xxi VOLUME 1 Arts, 1 Introduction, 1 Dance, 2 Gold and Silver, 4 History, 9 Literature, Hellenistic, 13 Mosaics, 18 Music, 22 Painting, Pottery, 25 Painting, Walls/Panels, 30 Philosophy, Aristotle, 35 Philosophy, Cynics, 37 Philosophy, Epicureans, 40 Philosophy, Platonic, 42 Philosophy, Skeptics, 45 Philosophy, Stoics, 48 Poetry, Epic, 50 Poetry, Lyric, 53 Rhetoric, 56 Satyr Plays, 59

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Sculpture, Archaic, 63 Sculpture, Hellenistic, 67 Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical, 72 Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical, 77 Second Sophistic Movement, 81 Sophists, 85 Temple Architecture, 89 Theater, Comedy, 93 Theater, Tragedy, 96 Economics and Work, 101 Introduction, 101 Actors, 102 Agriculture, 105 Animal Husbandry, 109 Apothecaries/Pharmacology, 114 Banking, 118 Carpentry, 121 Cloth-Making, 125 Cost of Living, 129 Currency, 132 Debt, 135 Fishing, 138 Landownership, 141 Masonry, 145 Merchants and Markets, 149 Metal-Refining, 155 Metalworking, 158 Midwives and Wet Nurses, 161 Mining, 164 Orators and Speechwriters, 168 Piracy and Banditry, 173 Pottery-Making, 177 Retirement, 180 Slavery, Private, 182 Slavery, Public, 186 Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era, 189 Taxation, 192 Trade, 197 Travel, 201

Contents

Viticulture, 205 Weights and Measures, 208 Family and Gender, 213 Introduction, 213 Abandonment and Abortion, 213 Adoption, 216 Adultery, 218 Blended Families, 222 Burial, 226 Childbirth and Infancy, 229 Childhood and Youth, 234 Clans/Geneˉ, 238 Daughters, 241 Death and Dying, 247 Divorce, 250 Extended Family, 254 Fathers, 258 Friendship and Love, 262 Grandparents, 267 Homosexuality, 271 Inheritance, 275 Marriage, 278 Men, 281 Mothers, 285 Mourning/Memorialization, 289 Play, 293 Sexuality, 297 Sons, 301 Weddings, 305 Women, 308 Fashion and Appearance, 317 Introduction, 317 Bathing/Baths, 317 Body, Attitudes toward, 321 Clothing, Classical Age, Females, 325 Clothing, Classical Age, Males, 329 Cosmetics, 331 Footwear, 335

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Foreign Dress, 338 Hairstyles, 341 Headgear, 344 Hygiene, 347 Jewelry, 351 Food and Drink, 357 Introduction, 357 Bread, 358 Cheese and Other Dairy Products, 360 Condiments and Seasonings, 364 Cooking, 367 Dessert, 371 Drunkenness, 374 Famine and Food Supply, 378 Feasts and Banquets, 382 Fruits and Nuts, 387 Grains, 390 Hospitality, 393 Hunting and Wild Game, 396 Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils, 399 Legumes, 402 Meals, 405 Meat, 408 Nectar and Ambrosia, 411 Nutrition and Malnutrition, 414 Olives and Olive Oil, 418 Poisons and Toxic Foods, 421 Potions, 424 Poultry, Birds, and Eggs, 426 Seafood, 429 Soups and Stews, 432 Vegetables, 434 Vegetarianism, 436 Wine, 440 VOLUME 2 Housing and Community, 445 Introduction, 445

Contents

Acropolis, 445 Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis, 449 Cemeteries, 451 Colonization, 454 Country Life, 458 Fortifications, 463 Furniture and Furnishings, 466 Health and Illness, 469 Household Religion, 474 Housing Architecture, 479 Infrastructure, 481 Marketplaces, 488 Palace Complexes, Bronze Age, 492 Plague/Epidemic Disease, 495 Public Buildings, 498 Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners, 500 Urban Life, 503 Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering, 510 Politics and Warfare, 517 Introduction, 517 Alexander the Great, Wars of, 518 Aristocracies, 523 Aristotle, Political Theory of, 527 Arms and Armor, 530 Assemblies, 535 Athenian Constitution, 539 Carthage, Wars with, 543 Cavalry, 547 Citizenship, 551 City-States, 554 Civil War, 557 Councils, 562 Democracies, 565 Diplomacy, 570 Ethnos, 575 Hoplite Soldiers, 579 Justice and Punishment, 584 Leagues/Alliances, 590 Monarchies, 594

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Navies, 597 Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), 603 Persian Wars (490–478 BCE), 607 Phalanx, 610 Plato, Political Theory of, 616 Public Officials, 620 Siege Technology, 625 Spartan Constitution, 628 Tyrannies, 631 Warfare, Attitudes toward, 635 Recreation and Social Customs, 639 Introduction, 639 Athletics, 640 Boxing, 643 City Dionysia, 646 Class Structure and Status, 650 Entertainers, Popular, 654 Festivals, 658 Gymnasia/Palaestrae, 663 Horse Racing, 667 Leisure Activities, 670 Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare, 674 Olympic Games, 679 Panathenaia, 683 Panhellenic Games, 686 Prostitutes and Courtesans, 690 Racing, 695 Stadiums and Hippodromes, 698 Symposia, 701 Theaters, 704 Wrestling, 707 Religion and Beliefs, 711 Introduction, 711 Afterlife/Underworld, 712 Asylum, 716 Bacchic Worship, 718 Chthonic Spirits, 721 Creation, 725

Contents

Deification, 728 Eleusinian Mysteries, 731 Libations and Offerings, 735 Magic, 738 Myths and Heroes, 742 Olympian Gods, 750 Oracles, 753 Orphism, 759 Priests and Priestesses, 763 Prophecy and Divination, 766 Pythagoreans, 770 Sacrifices, 773 Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves, 777 Science and Technology, 785 Introduction, 785 Alphabet, 785 Artificial Power, 789 Astronomy, 792 Biology, 797 Botany, 801 Calendars, 804 Cosmology, 807 Education, 810 Engineering, 815 Experimentation and Research, 818 Exploration, 823 Geography, 826 Geometry, 830 Greek Language Groups, 834 Inscriptions, 836 Libraries and Literacy, 841 Linear A and Linear B, 845 Machines, 848 Mathematics and Numeracy, 852 Medicine, 855 Navigation, 860 “Paper”-Making, 863 Physics, 866 Ships/Shipbuilding, 870

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Time-Reckoning, 874 Vehicles, 877 Zoology, 881 Primary Documents, 885 Aeschines on Foreign Negotiation and Domestic Mud-Slinging   (343 BCE), 885 Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE), 887 Aristotle on Familial Friendship (Fourth Century BCE), 892 Diogenes Laertius on the Philosopher Hipparchia (Third Century CE), 894 Euripides on Women’s Tragedy of Surviving War (415 BCE), 895 Herodotus on Gelon’s Refusal to Join the Greek Alliance (481 BCE), 900 Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE), 902 “Hippocrates” on Diagnosis and Observation of Illnesses (Late Fifth   Century BCE), 905 Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown), 907 Lysias on the Murder of an Adulterer (403 BCE), 908 Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores   (Late Fourth Century BCE), 910 The Old Oligarch on the Problems of Democracy   (Later Fifth Century BCE), 914 Pindar Celebrates a Wrestling Champion (c. 463 BCE), 916 Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE), 919 Poetry—Greek Poets on Love, 921 Poetry—Greek Poets on War, 924 Theocritus Describes Women at a Festival (Early Third Century BCE), 928 Thucydides on the Corcyraean Revolution (427 BCE), 931 Xenophon on the Roles of Wife and Husband (c. 362 BCE), 934 Bibliography, 937 Index, 943

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY

INTRODUCTION Early on in their history, the ancient Greeks lived primarily in villages surrounding the citadels established by their leaders. Later, those fortresses were abandoned to other purposes or altogether, and the Greeks fanned out across the Aegean, Black, and Mediterranean Seas, establishing over a thousand separate communities, ranging in scale from small towns to large cities, from widely spread tribal districts to highly concentrated urban centers. Across their world, certain similarities bridged the differences among these communities. All created dedicated spaces in which to carry out commerce (often the very heart of their territory), to honor their divinities (often at the highest points in their territory), and to remember their dead (often on the outskirts of their territory). Most protected themselves from attack through the erection of fortifications and invested manpower and wealth in the creation of forms of infrastructure and water supply that would benefit the entire community, especially in terms of health, commerce, and transportation. Housing and public buildings looked pretty much the same wherever one ventured across the Greek world. The majority of citizens lived in the countryside, developing a sociocultural symbiosis with those citizens who lived in the urbanized downtown areas. These latter environments witnessed the interaction of citizens with immigrants, resident aliens, and foreign visitors who made sometimes beneficial, sometimes troubling, contributions to the community ethos.

ACROPOLIS Many ancient Greek communities established themselves around a prominent natural outcropping of rock; even in the Bronze Age (c. 1700 –c. 1100 BCE), the 445

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citadels of the powerful were constructed atop such high points. In later ages, such places continued to serve the function of emergency refuge and strategic lookout, but they came especially to be associated with the most important deities worshipped by the community. The Greeks called them acropoleis (sing. acropolis), literally “high city.” The height of such sacred places naturally varied with the terrain of Greece. For example, despite the prestige and military power of Sparta in ancient times, or perhaps because of those factors, its acropolis stood on a relatively low-lying hill (only about eighty feet high) in the center of the city-state. When Pausanias, the travel writer and geographer of the second century CE, visited the city, he noted several monuments on the Spartan acropolis commemorating athletic victories in the Olympics and military successes in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars. Religious sanctuaries predominated, however, rather modest in comparison with other Greek city-states but still of greatest significance to the Spartans. Here they honored Athena in two temples, especially as “Guardian of the City” in the so-called Bronze House (apparently because of the bronze panels with mythological scenes decorating the temple walls and the bronze statue of the goddess within). They also had sanctuaries to Zeus “Maker of Order,” the Muses, “Warlike” Aphrodite, Artemis, and even to Ammon (from eastern Libya). The acropolis of the great commercial town of Corinth commanded a strategic position at the lower end of the Isthmus of Corinth, overlooking, from a height of almost 1,900 feet, the main overland routes from central Greece into southern Greece. Acrocorinth, as it was called, was a steeply precipitous mountain, below which was built the city-state of Corinth itself. Although the Corinthians did erect temples to Aphrodite and to Demeter and Kore on their acropolis, since at least the sixth century BCE, they utilized it principally as a fortress. In Late Classical and Hellenistic times, like other so-called Fetters of Greece, Acrocorinth became a key military possession for those who wished to either dominate Corinth, dominate the Isthmus, or both; hence, it fell, alternately, into the hands of Macedonians, Achaeans, Spartans, and Romans, until the latter destroyed most of the fortifications there to prevent southern Greek rebels from using the Acrocorinth as a base for any further resistance against the Roman Empire. Pausanias visited when a rebuilt Corinth, and hence a rebuilt Acrocorinth, later existed thanks to the Romans and described many more sanctuaries and altars up on the height, including those to the Greek deities Hera, Helios, Necessity, Force, and the Fates, as well as to the imported deities the Mother of the Gods (that is, Cybele from Asia Minor) and Isis and Serapis (from Egypt). Strabo the geographer of the early first century CE describes the marvelous vistas from Acrocorinth, as well as something that this height had in common with the Acropolis of Athens, sources of abundant underground water issuing forth in natural springs.

Housing and Community: Acropolis

The central Greek city-state of Thebes, famous as the home of Heracles and Oedipus, had its acropolis, the Cadmea, named for Cadmus, another mythical hero. Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of large mansions atop the Cadmea dating from the Bronze Age, indeed, from the early third millennium BCE, as well as extensive housing, elite burial sites, and fortifications, all in the Mycenaean style, from the second millennium BCE, the era of Greek emergence in the Aegean region. The Cadmea of Thebes counted as one of the strongest and most prosperous citadels of the Mycenaean world, the center of a wide-reaching nexus of power and trade. As in the case of Corinth’s acropolis, the Theban one became a point of contention among rival powers attempting to exert dominance over central Greece from there, including most famously the Spartans, who fomented a Theban revolution by occupying the Cadmea, and the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, who destroyed virtually all of Thebes. Pausanias tells us that the Romans also punished the Thebans for their rebelliousness in the early first century BCE, yet they allowed the population to live on the citadel after abandoning much of the rest of their territory to the Romans. No doubt, the Acropolis of Athens is the most famous of the Greek world and was even so in ancient times. Located at the center of the astu, the urban heart of

On this steep outcropping of bedrock some three hundred feet above the plain, called acropolis or “high city,” the ancient Athenian democracy established its most sacred shrine to its patron goddess, Athena. Most of the visible ruins, especially those of the Temple of Athena Parthenos, date from the major renovation directed by the architect-sculptor Phidias in the third quarter of the fifth century BCE. (Pedre/iStockphoto.com)

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Athens, this natural outcropping of rock, over five hundred feet tall, was originally a citadel or fortress in Mycenaean times, probably the residence of the wanax, or chief. Archaeological investigation has uncovered tombs from the fourteenth century BCE, as well as remains of the huge defensive walls from the thirteenth century BCE. After the collapse of the Mycenaean culture in the Greek Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE), the Acropolis seems to have been largely abandoned. When the archaeological record picks up again, we find, instead of the military installation of a king, a substantial religious complex of structures atop the hill. There were two large and six small temples from the sixth century BCE, for example. Most of what remains today are the ruins of the massive fifth-century BCE overhaul of the Acropolis, orchestrated by the Athenian general Pericles. A new temple to Athena Parthenos would come to dominate the hilltop and the urban skyline. It replaced an unfinished temple to the goddess, begun in 490 BCE but destroyed, along with the rest of the structures atop the hill, by the Persians during their invasion a decade later. The architects and builders of the new Parthenon (as we call it, following the Greeks of the early fourth century BCE and afterward), began their work in 447 BCE and utilized much of the foundations and other construction materials remaining from the earlier version of the temple. Following the precedent set by the builders of the Temple to Aphaia on the nearby island of Aegina, the Parthenon’s chief architect, Iktinos, assisted by Kallicrates of Ionia—all the while under the direction of the master artist Phidias—engaged for the next fifteen years in creating the now-famous optical illusions that would make the temple appear to be a perfect rectangular box even when seen from farther and farther distances, whether just below the acropolis in the heart of the city, or in the harbor, or out at sea. Other important structures atop the refurbished Acropolis included the small Temple of Athena Nike, with its elegant parapet reliefs, and the Erechtheum (which replaced the sixth-century BCE temple to Athena Polias), quite complex in its history, design, and ornamentation. Phidias’ massive bronze and chryselephantine statues of Athena (the former outside, the latter inside the Parthenon) were joined by other votive and celebratory sculptures, as well as other sanctuaries in honor of Artemis and Zeus. Furthermore, as in the case of other city-states, the ground all around the Athenian acropolis was considered almost as holy as the summit itself; shrines to the goddesses known as nymphs and a theater honoring Dionysus lay along the slopes of the hill. By Late Classical times, a city-state’s acropolis served not only the practical functions of religion but also the propagandistic function of advertising the wealth, might, and sophistication of the community. Perhaps no place in later generations better encapsulates all this than the acropolis of Pergamum. In deliberate imitation of the great high places of mainland Greece, the Pergamene rulers in the third

Housing and Community: Andro¯ n and Gynaiko¯nitis

and second centuries BCE carried out massive construction projects to produce a multi-terraced acropolis to tower above the rest of their territory; it included the famous Altar of Zeus, a grand library, marketplace, and theater, as well as temples and military monuments, and, of course, the royal residence. The acropolis, thus, maintained a literally and figuratively central place in the identity and imagination of the Greek communities. It continued to represent safety and power throughout ancient Greek history, while also becoming the showpiece of a city-state’s religious devotion, as well as its sense of civic honor and prestige. See also: Arts: Temple Architecture; Housing and Community: Fortifications; Palaces Complexes, Bronze Age; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: City-States; Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Engineering; Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Carpenter, R. M. and A. Bon. 1936. Corinth. Vol. 3, Part 2: The Defenses of Akrokorinth and the Lower Town, with a Contribution by A. W. Parsons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hack, H. 1975. The Rise of Thebes: A Study of Theban Politics and Diplomacy, 388–371 BC. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hansen, E. V. 1971. The Attalids of Pergamon. 2nd ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hurwit, J. M. 1999. The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hurwit, J. M. 2004. The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neils, J., ed. 2005. The Parthenon from Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Symeonoglou, S. 1985. The Topography of Thebes from the Bronze Age to Modern Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wiseman, J. 1978. The Land of the Ancient Corinthians. Göteborg: P. Åström.

ANDRO¯N AND GYNAIKO¯NITIS Greek society, especially during the Classical Period, encouraged strong separation, indeed segregation, of men and women. According to literary sources, this was seen in the houses of the more affluent, that is, those who could afford to do so, with the physical division of their residences into a section for the men of the family and a section for the women. The men’s section was called the androˉn or androˉnitis, the women’s section the gynaikoˉnitis or gynaikeion.

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The androˉn or androˉnitis was said to be located close to the entrance of the home. The simplest version included a vestibule, porch, or courtyard of some sort (depending on the particular financial and status circumstances of the homeowner), that functioned as a welcoming area for guests. This led into the androˉn proper, a room for socializing and dining, utilized exclusively by the male members of the family and their male associates from the outside world. The androˉn contained the dining couches, or klinai, so famous from their images on Greek painted pottery and, thus, was the scene of the symposia, or drinking parties, immortalized in Greek literature. More broadly construed, the androˉnitis might encompass an even larger portion of a house, consisting of several androˉnes. The peristyle or courtyard of a large home, into which visitors and guests first entered, and the rooms surrounding that peristyle, in fact might have all been taken together as the androˉn or androˉnitis, because the family might have expected its female members never to remain long in that part of the house, as it connected to the outside world so easily. This seems to have been from where the custom of the gynaikoˉnitis or gynaikeion emerged. The women of a large house, including female servants and slaves, were intended to have separate quarters for sleeping, eating, and doing household chores. This was often the biggest section of such a house (sometimes encompassing the entire upper floor, if there was one). Its ultimate purpose was to keep the women of the household physically and morally protected from male visitors. Modern scholars, especially archaeologists who conduct research in the remains of ancient Greek housing, assume that, when such male guests were absent, women wandered freely throughout most of the house, with the exception of the androˉn proper, that is, the all-male dining area. Possessing a gynaikoˉnitis, according to our ancient texts, was seen as a sign of the respectability of the family and especially its female members; its extent in terms of a home’s square footage might seem flattering at first, even today. Ancient Greek literature makes clear, however, that the gynaikeion represented first and foremost the societal ideal of keeping women isolated within the home, separate from outside influences or dangers. Since entry into the gynaikoˉnitis was often only through a single door, whose key was in the possession of the man of the house, the women of the family could literally be locked away, like prisoners. Whether this happened often is hard to say. What is easier to be sure of is that the androˉn, by contrast, was meant to invite a Greek man’s experience of the outside world into the private world of his own home. One other aspect of segregation between androˉn and gynaikoˉnitis ought to be noted; children, whether female or male, spent their lives growing up in the gynaikoˉnitis, that is to say, excluded from the androˉn. Boys could not participate in the adult activities of the androˉn, such as feasting, drinking, and associating with courtesans; thus, it would have been an important rite of passage for a young

Housing and Community: Cemeteries

man to transition from the gynaikoˉnitis, where he was cared for by women, to the androˉn, where he took his place as a full-fledged male. Across the ancient Greek world, various customs separated women from men in some fashion. Those Greeks who could afford the luxury of doing so clearly felt the need to mark this separation down in the very layout and use of the rooms in their homes. See also: Family and Gender: Men; Women; Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings; Housing Architecture; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Recreation and Social Customs: Symposia; Primary Documents: Xenophon on the Roles of Wife and Husband (c. 362 BCE) FURTHER READING Blundell, S. 1994. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Demand, N. 1994. Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fantham, E., et al., eds. 1994. Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Just, R. 1989. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Pomeroy, S. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ARCHITECTURE. See HOUSING ARCHITECTURE CEMETERIES Interment of the deceased in a particular locale that we would call a cemetery varied among the ancient Greek communities according to popular custom. What did not vary was the significance of burial sites in the civic landscape and in the social construction of those communities. Some Greeks buried their dead within the confines of their community; in fact, this seems to have been more common among the Greeks in the earlier periods of their history. The Greeks of Bronze Age Mycenae, for example, interred what may have been their most honored dead (judging from the skeletal remains and grave

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goods, they were certainly large, tall individuals from the warrior aristocracy) in what we call Grave Circle A. The Spartans, and their colony Tarentum in southern Italy, continued the tradition of burial within city limits, believing that it served as a constant reminder to the living of the imminence of death and as a means of overcoming the fear of death. Most Greek communities, however, abandoned this custom (if they had ever practiced it) in the Archaic Period; indeed, they came to be horrified by it, as they no doubt would be also by the modern practice of having cemeteries within cities. To most Greeks, death had become a form of miasma (spiritual pollution), a stain upon a family and a community, a taste of destruction; the dead simply could not coexist with the living, even as neighbors, except in the rare cases of heroes (especially founding fathers) thus honored. Instead, most Greek communities established cemeteries outside city limits, to prevent “pollution” of the living world by the dead, as well as to prevent environmental contamination. The Greeks referred to such burial grounds as “cities of the dead,” necropoleis (sing. necropolis). Necropoleis lay along the main roads leading in and out of Greek communities, so they were not hidden from view; any traveler would have seen the various monuments to the deceased along his or her journey. The Athenians, for example, had several sizable cemeteries outside the boundaries of their city-center. The most famous sat along the road leading northwest out of the city, the Kerameikos and the Demosion Sema. The former took its name from the potters’ district located nearby; the latter served as the official burial place of those honored by the state, including military personnel, statesmen, prominent intellectuals, and others. The location of these two necropoleis appears remarkable. On the one hand, nothing could be more convenient; Greeks devotedly purchased grave goods or other vessels of offering for the dead, and those seeking such items at Athens would have had a wide array of expert ceramic artists nearby the burial site. On the other hand, the road past the cemeteries was taken by religious pilgrims on their way to and from the sacred shrine of Demeter at Eleusis; devotees sought to acquire eternal life after death from that goddess, which could not have been more relevant after passing literally through a city of the dead. No two necropoleis looked exactly alike, but many shared common features. Unlike cemeteries in the United States today, Greek cemeteries tended to be dominated by freestanding tombs, some of considerable architectural and artistic sophistication. In a number of Greek communities, they carved tombs into rocky hillsides or outcroppings farther from town. Sometimes, as in the case of Syracuse on the island of Sicily, the inspiration for doing so seems to have come from experience, the experience of quarrying stone nearby. In Asia Minor, on the other hand, or at Alexandria in Egypt, the Greek populations adopted the custom of carving tombs

Housing and Community: Cemeteries

from their non-Greek neighbors who had very long traditions of doing so. Whether freestanding stone tombs or hollowed out of living rock, such burial sites had in common the Greeks’ attempt to make them resemble the homes of the living or the sacred places of the gods. The ancient Greeks practiced both cremation and inhumation, the choice depending on various circumstances and customs. In rock-cut tombs, corpses of the deceased would typically be placed enshrouded and resting on slabs of stone or enclosed within caskets of terracotta or stone (sarcophagi, meaning “flesh eaters”); this might also be the case in freestanding crypts, but cremated remains might be placed in an urn of terracotta or stone instead. Furthermore, Greeks seem to have been quite partial to group burials, that is, family crypts and collective crypts for war dead (  polyandria). Greek necropoleis also contained urns (larnakes) or sarcophagi buried under the earth, above which were erected stone grave markers. Varying in style and quality of workmanship according to the means and tastes of the deceased’s family or friends, such markers took various forms. In the Dark Age and the Archaic Period (that is, roughly 1100–490 BCE), statues of young men and women (kouroi and korai, respectively) or very large pieces of painted pottery marked buried graves. In later periods, pillars of rounded or squared shape and stone slabs, or ste¯lae, were most common (as well as altars of cylindrical or roughly cubic appearance for graves of certain men considered to have become heroic spirits in the afterlife). Post-Archaic grave markers sometimes were carved with reliefs depicting the deceased, scenes of daily life, or mythical imagery, as well as inscriptions identifying the deceased in some fashion. The ste¯lae of the Athenian cemeteries are especially well known to today’s students of ancient Greek art. Less usually, the Greeks buried their dead, specifically their war dead, on the field of battle. For instance, in 490 BCE, the Athenians cremated the soldiers who had fallen against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon and interred their remains on the field of Marathon, in a funeral mound some fifty meters in diameter and some nine meters tall. On the battlefield of Chaeronea, where the Macedonians destroyed the Sacred Band of Thebes in 338 BCE, the fallen of that elite unit were buried; the mass grave contained 254 skeletons and was marked with a stone lion as a form of memorial. These sorts of “cemetery” had their origin in the burial mounds of the distant past, a tradition the Greeks shared with many other cultures from Europe to Central Asia and which was immortalized in the poetry of Homer. Unlike the mass graves just described for those who fell in battle, however, most Greek burial mounds concealed a burial chamber of some sort at their center, intended for one or perhaps a few corpses. The Mycenaean Greeks, for example, employed such tholos burials only for their elite and, centuries later, the Macedonians did the same.

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Although later Greeks would have objected strongly to the Mycenaean habit of reusing burial places (replacing decayed corpses with new ones), Greeks of almost all times and places shared the tradition of dedicating grave goods to the deceased. It seemed appropriate to deposit something precious to those who had passed away, or to their loved ones or community, whether weapons or ceramics, jewelry or cosmetics. Moreover, when Greeks visited the graves of the deceased on certain occasions, they typically left more of such objects behind. Ancient Greek cemeteries, then, were not places to be forgotten or ignored, but rather part and parcel of the social fabric, of the cycle of the calendar, and of the daily experiences of the living. They were at once a world apart and integral to the life of the family and the community. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Pottery-Making; Family and Gender: Burial; Death and Dying; Mourning/Memorialization; Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Religion and Beliefs: Chthonic Spirits; Libations and Offerings FURTHER READING Boardman, J., and D. Kurtz. 1971. Greek Burial Customs. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Morris, I. 1987. Burial and Ancient Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morris, I. 1992. Death-Ritual and Social Structures in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ziolkowski, J. 1981. Thucydides and the Tradition of Funeral Speeches at Athens. New York: Arno Press.

COLONIZATION The world of ancient Greece included not just the territory of today’s Greek Republic but also lands farther afield, from southern France in the west to southern Russia in the east. Colonization of distant lands by Greeks serves to explain this. In the period roughly 1100–800 BCE, thousands of people apparently left their homes in mainland Greece to escape the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization there, some traveling as far away as the island of Cyprus. Political, socioeconomic, and military instability continued to challenge a number of Greek communities in subsequent centuries as well. Archaeological evidence suggests an increase in the

Housing and Community: Colonization

population of mainland Greece also took place then, which strained the natural resources and agricultural productivity of certain communities. Some opportunity for escape from the particular troubles in a given region presented itself to those Greek men willing to fight as mercenaries for outside powers, such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, or Chaldeans. More Greeks benefited from renewed trade contacts, especially with peoples along the Black Sea coast and the coasts of Italy and France, which provided knowledge and experience of places to which people in danger, surplus populations, or simply adventurous entrepreneurs might move. Following in the trails blazed by mercenaries, merchants, and other explorers, a massive, accelerated, and wide-ranging movement of Greek emigration took place in the period roughly 800–600 BCE, motivated by varied factors. The Greeks established few colonies in the southeastern Mediterranean, a densely populated region inhabited by sophisticated cultures much older and more militarily advanced than their own. Their only known colony in Syria, Poseideion (known today as Al Mina), founded c. 750 BCE on the Orontes River, served as an important link in the wide trade network among the Aramaeans, Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Philistines, not to mention the peoples of Mesopotamia farther east. Greek merchants and mercenaries in the Near Eastern region, perhaps at Poseideion itself, while trading for metal, also learned the Semitic system of writing then current, adapted it, and brought it back to the homeland, thus leading to the creation of the Greek alphabet. Greek pirates, especially from Aegina and the coasts of Asia Minor, also operated in the waters of the southeastern Mediterranean; some of them took advantage of a rebellion in Egypt, led by Psammetichus against the Assyrian Empire, to seize territory in the Nile Delta; they established a colony there called Naucratis c. 630 BCE that attracted Greek “merchants” from all over the eastern Mediterranean, trading their olive oil, silver, and wine for Egyptian grain, papyrus, linen, ivory, and faience. Greek mercenaries from Naucratis served Psammetichus II in the following century, leaving their graffiti on the ancient monuments of Abu Simbel to mark their presence so far from home. Colonies founded as Naucratis and Poseideion were, however, did not do much to relieve population pressure on the Greek mainland or to open up significant resources to the Greeks. More significant in their impact were those colonies deliberately sent out by their “mother country” (metropolis, “mother city”). As far as we can tell from available evidence, most “surplus” citizens did not leave Greece haphazardly; instead, their metropolis officially organized one or more expeditions to found its colonies, or apoikiai (sing. apoikia), abroad. Most colonies were thus state-sponsored and state-mandated endeavors, sometimes solemnized through consultation with the gods, especially consultation of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi.

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Membership in a colonial expedition might not even have been voluntary. According to the historian Herodotus, when the metropolis of Thera sent to colonize Cyrene in Libya (c. 630 BCE), participants were conscripted (in fact, brothers volunteered brothers), the death penalty decreed against them if they should return to Thera before five years were up. As harsh as this might sound, it was eminently practical given the widespread Greek tradition of equally dividing family assets among sons; in order for the next generation to have a chance, some of those sons might have to become small-scale pioneers (and those at Cyrene, settling on very fertile soil with good rainfall, fared better than those they left behind). In addition, as male colonists left their metropolis, it lost fighting men; the community thus understandably had a vested interest in overseeing the process of emigration in order to exercise some say in who did and did not remain. In most colonies, it seems an effort was made to include different classes of citizens and people with as many different skills as possible to replicate the social structure of the metropolis and begin the colony with a potential for greatest selfsufficiency. The metropolis also selected a colony leader, the oikiste¯s, a member of one of the city’s leading families, who had the special task of transplanting the home culture (in terms of fundamental laws, religious practices, political system, and so on) to the new locale, even carrying with him a ceremonial flame from the metropolis. Once firmly established, however, an apoikia became an independent city-state, a polis in its own right, with only a few moral or religious obligations to its metropolis. In this way, Greek poleis spread across the western Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Sea regions. East of the Greek mainland, in what is today western Turkey (what the ancient Greeks called “Asia”), a number of very prosperous and culturally significant colonies had already been founded, or refounded, in the post-Mycenaean period, such as Miletus, Ephesus, Priene, and Halicarnassus. Athens especially seems to have organized more foundations along Ionia, the central-western coast of Turkey. Contact with the non-Greek populations of the region, such as Cimmerians, Phrygians, and especially Lydians (the latter of whom exacted tribute from the Greek colonies), introduced Greek settlers to traditions and skills that would have a deep influence on Greek society, technology, and economy in general. North and west of the Greek mainland, Greek colonizers found rich agricultural and grazing land, abundant sources of timber and metals, and good harbors for shipping; they found the region of the North Aegean, as well as the coasts of the Black Sea and the eastern Adriatic, and the shores of Italy and southern France, less populated than elsewhere, and those populations possessing less sophisticated technology, especially in a military sense, than themselves. Greek colonizers had the option of settling in peacefully with the natives or of brutally suppressing them

Housing and Community: Colonization

and seizing their lands; the colonists of Megara Hyblaea in eastern Sicily did the former, invited by the locals to settle near them, whereas the colonists of Syracuse, also in eastern Sicily, expelled some of the local inhabitants and reduced others to serfdom. The imperialism of such Greek colonies might have sparked rebellions of the natives (like that of the Sicel leader Duketios in the middle of the fifth century BCE), but rarely amounted to expulsion of the Greeks. City-states on the islands of the south and east Aegean led the colonization of the North Aegean region, while the Ionian communities, especially Miletus (which sent out over thirty colonies), did so in the area around the Black Sea. The people of Corinth, the greatest naval power of Greece before 500 BCE, led the way along the western coast of Greece and eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. This monopolizing of colonial endeavors in certain regions attests further the state-organized nature of Greek colonization. Its greatest successes came further west, in the region the ancients dubbed Megale¯ Hellas (Magna Graecia to the Romans), “Greater Greece,” that is, Sicily and southern Italy. The Greek colonies of the West were often organized through agents from Euboea or Achaea, who already carried on brisk trade in copper and iron with the local inhabitants from trading posts on offshore islands and small peninsulas. At first, the object of such colonies was to protect trade routes (as with Rhegium and Zancle on either side of the Straits of Messina, settled by the Chalcidians of Euboea), but eventually they consisted largely of settlers (from Euboea and from across the Peloponnesus) seeking good agricultural land. The colonies themselves later sent out further colonies of their own at a rate of as many as five to one. The Phocaean colony of Massilia (today’s Marseilles in southern France) did even better than its counterparts in Megale¯ Hellas, founding ten colonies of its own. Greek explorers seeking raw materials scoped out territories for later settlers, merchants searched for import or export markets, and land-hungry farmers found ample land, typically enough for its equal division among themselves, plus large sections set aside for religious sanctuaries. Opportunistic Greek colonists might adopt an imperialistic or a laissez-faire attitude toward the natives they encountered; they might reject the ways of native populations outright or encourage intermarriage with them. Greek settlers learned much from the locals (whether coinage from the Lydians, geometry from the Egyptians, or agricultural methods from the Scythians) and had a considerable cultural impact themselves on many non-Greek populations. Sometimes adopted wholesale by non-Greek populations, sometimes melded selectively with native traditions, Greek warfare, religious and political ideas, pottery styles, coinage, writing, architectural forms and artistic techniques, and so on, in other words, Hellenism, spread across the Aegean, Black Sea, and western Mediterranean regions by means of colonization.

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See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Currency; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Trade; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; City-States; Civil War; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Science and Technology: Engineering; Exploration; Geometry; Ships/Shipbuilding FURTHER READING Boardman, J. 1995. Greek Sculpture—The Late Classical Period and Sculpture in Colonies and Overseas. London: Thames & Hudson. Boardman, J. 1999. The Greeks Overseas. 4th ed. London: Thames & Hudson. Descoeudres, J.-P., ed. 1990. Greek Colonists and Native Populations. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Graham, A. J. 1983. Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece. 2nd ed. Chicago: Ares. Hall, J. M. 2007. A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Snodgrass, A. M. 1980. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

COUNTRY LIFE Since so much of our knowledge about the ancient Greeks comes from their literature, and since so few ancient Greek writers actually came from rural areas (such as Hesiod, Pindar, and Plutarch, who all came from Boeotia), the picture of the ancient Greek countryside can seem skewed through an urbanite lens. Still, to draw sharp distinctions between the urban and rural worlds of ancient Greece is misleading; even the translation “city-state” for the Greek word polis is inaccurate because the vast majority of the population in the communities of ancient Greece lived in the countryside, not in urban centers, and those urban centers did not “control” the country folk. In point of fact, the urban and rural worlds in Greece were interconnected through the concerted efforts of their populations, their shared membership in the same community, their very close ties and back-and-forth contact, even in the cases of the biggest cities, like Athens. The Greek countryside witnessed wide socioeconomic variations, from smallscale peasants who struggled to make ends meet to wealthy landlords who lived in town rather than on their rural properties. Some country folk worked as tenant farmers, leasing from the estates of the rich or from local shrines and temples, and as hired herdsmen, tending the flocks and herds of others, but most spent their days working their own lands or tending their own livestock. Recall that landownership was one of the defining characteristics of citizenship in the Greek world, so that even many urbanites owned land in the countryside that they would visit on a frequent basis.

Housing and Community: Country Life

Not all country dwellers farmed or herded, however. Many Greeks who lived out in the countryside harvested raw materials, such as timber, metal, and stone resources, for use in the urban centers; many were tile-makers, brick-makers, carpenters, cloth-makers, and so on. Rural Greeks lived and worked out of their houses, which differed little from those of their urban counterparts. They were constructed of mud-brick or stone and topped by terracotta tile roofs; wealthier residences even had mosaic floors and frescoed walls. As archaeological remains indicate, such houses and their outbuildings were mainly clustered on the landscape, rather than spread apart as farmsteads. Greeks in the countryside were very sociable and so did not live in isolation but rather in nucleated small towns or villages (koˉmai), which themselves formed districts of the larger city-state. In Athens, these were referred to as de¯moi (demes), and there were close to ninety of them across Attica. To take Attica as an example, each rural deme, like its counterparts in the urban center of Athens, had its own agora, or marketplace (often with a warm blacksmith’s shop where locals would gather during the winter months), its own recreational facilities, like gymnasia, and its own structures for official business, usually some sort of stoa or council house or theater (which served double duty). In the latter, the de¯marchos (local mayor) and the deme assembly would meet, as well as circuitcourt judges (dikastai kata tou de¯mous) and arbitrators (diaitetai), who would settle local disputes. Archaeologists have unearthed many deme inscriptions from across Attica, the official pronouncements of the rural population on a variety of matters, mostly related to property issues, agricultural concerns, and religious observances. Rural men in democracies like Athens frequently found themselves temporarily moving into the downtown area to serve in the political system, but they would also serve on a long-term basis in their local deme. Any de¯mote¯s (demesman) of age thirty or older might be made de¯marchos through a lottery system and any demesman of at least age twenty could participate in the deme assembly; dikastai of the proper age were selected through a lottery system that stretched across all Attica. Unlike downtown Athens, where jury courts (dikaste¯ria) dominated the judicial scene, rural Attica apparently saw much more extensive use of arbitration, diaitetai being drawn from a pool of men age sixty and above. Aside from political affairs, rural Greeks also came to the urban centers of their city-states on a fairly regular basis to participate in the business of the marketplace (especially the trade in oil, wine, and cheese) or to enjoy religious festivals. Religion particularly bound urban and rural Greece together. In Attica alone, rural festivals in thanksgiving for a good harvest or in supplication for fertility of fields and flocks, like the Halo¯a, Eleusinia, Kalamaia, Proe¯rosia, and Thesmophoria, held a major place in the calendar of the entire city-state. Urban dwellers made pilgrimages regularly to rural locales that were focal points for worship,

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such as the temples of Poseidon and Athena at Sounion, the temple of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, or the temple of Artemis at Brauron; all the demes of Attica celebrated the rural Dionysia. Religious celebrations were the primary means by which rural women participated in the civic life of their villages and towns. In addition, rural religious practices remained archaic in form and purpose, virtually unaffected by the literary and philosophical musings of Greek urbanites. For rural Greeks, worship of the spirits of rivers, lakes, trees, mountains, and so on retained significance, even when these had little meaning to their fellow urbanite citizens. Daily life in the ancient Greek countryside mostly conformed to the requirements of the agricultural or pastoral economy. Assisted by their children, men and women labored on separate chores, the former, for instance, tending the livestock, plowing (in spring, summer, and early fall to prevent weeds) and planting the fields (early November), cutting wood for tools and equipment (October), while the latter cooked, cleaned, cared for the children, made clothes, and helped pruning the vines (mid- to late February), at the grain harvest (early May), on the threshing floor (July), and at the harvest of grapes and olives (September). Long hours of hard work were the norm for rural Greek men and women, following the seasons, marked by the rising and setting of the constellations and by the behavior of animals. The month of June was the month of rest in the Greek countryside, where families listened to the cicadas singing in the trees and watched the artichokes flowering. Families usually took care of all this for themselves on their small plots of land, but villagers usually went out together to do their work and, at certain times of the year, they would pool their resources and labor to achieve needed results for them all. They often borrowed seed, implements, and draught animals from one another and provided assistance to one another in times of trouble. They also hired resident aliens (metics) and poor citizens from the urban center (known as the¯tes in Athens) as additional laborers. Herdsmen were often of freed or slave status working on larger estates. Most country folk could afford one or two slaves, adults and children, to assist in shared tasks, but many scholars believe that even this occurred only seasonally. In other words, the cycle of life in the Greek countryside remained fairly consistent from year to year and the population there fairly homogeneous. This helps to explain the conservatism and reluctance to experiment for which ancient Greek country dwellers were known, which translated across all aspects of their lifestyle. They valued most working for oneself and one’s family, providing modest dowries for their daughters and preserving a decent livelihood for their sons, serving out their obligations to the gods, and having enough spare time to assist their peers in creating a mutually beneficial social life. They typically intermarried with other

Housing and Community: Country Life

country folk (note well the complaints of Aristophanes’ character, Strepsiades, who bemoans his marriage to an urbanite woman of higher social status in the Clouds), so land and customs remained fairly fixed. Many of these values became foundational in the urban societies that grew out of the rural roots of the Greek world. Demographic studies have suggested that life expectancy was higher in the rural areas of Greece than in the urban areas. The Hellenistic poet Leonidas of Tarentum (early third century BCE), for instance, once wrote an epitaph for a man named Cleiton who lived to be eighty in his little country cottage, with a little strip of farmland, a small vineyard, and a small cope of woods. Such long life expectancies would have resulted partly from less likelihood of starvation, famine, and malnutrition in the countryside. Rural districts also seem to have been hit less hard by disease epidemics than urban centers with their greater concentration of people. Available evidence also suggests that incidences of crime were much lower outside the urban centers. In the warfare of the Greek world, men from the countryside served as some of the most loyal soldiers and tended to hold a stubborn patriotism; no wonder country folk in Attica were able to endure the privations of long wars, particularly the devastations of the Peloponnesian War. Some rural demes in Attica, such as Phyle and Rhamnous along the routes into Boeotia, were fortified and provided garrison troops for the defense of the city-state. Perhaps most reputed for bravery in this regard were the hoplite farmers of Acharnai, a deme in the foothills of Mt. Parnes that boasted as many as 10,000 inhabitants, larger than many independent citystates. The Acharnians cultivated olives, grapevines, and cereals, burned charcoal, and venerated Ares. Far removed from the realities of the countryside, urbanite poets of the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), like Moschus, Bion, and Theocritus, fantasized about rural life in their pastoral poetry. In his eidyllia (little images, vignettes), Theocritus (third century BCE), who had moved from bustling Syracuse on Sicily to even more bustling Alexandria in Egypt, achieved greatest popularity in Hellenistic and Roman times for his urbane idealization of a rustic world of simplicity and innocence. This perspective contrasted much with that of the Archaic poet Hesiod (eighth century BCE), who claimed to be a country dweller himself, and regarded rural life as a struggle to avoid hunger and to live up to the ideals of the goddess Demeter not to remain idle nor to harm one’s neighbors. Certainly, both points of view contained valid elements. Whether lumberjacks, miners, artisans, herdsmen, or farmers, rural Greeks lived an older style of life than their urban counterparts, simpler, slower, and more peaceful in some respects, more strenuous and more vulnerable in others. Still, rural and urban Greeks shared friendships and family relations, traded with one another, walked in religious

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procession with one another, debated with and voted and fought alongside one another. As in more modern times, some country folk regarded urban dwellers with suspicion as smooth-talking, over-educated “city slickers,” while some urbanites looked down on rural people as simpletons in “dog-skin caps.” Regardless of such love-hate relations, the majority of ancient Greeks lived their entire lives in the countryside and urban Greeks could not have lived without them. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Carpentry; Cloth-Making; Fishing; Landownership; Masonry; Merchants and Markets; Metal-Refining; Mining; Pottery-Making; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Trade; Viticulture; Family and Gender: Inheritance; Marriage; Housing and Community: Colonization; Housing Architecture; Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Plague/Epidemic Disease; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Assemblies; Citizenship; Democracies; Ethnos; Hoplite Soldiers; Justice and Punishment; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Burford, A. 1993. Land and Labor in the Greek World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Carter, J. C. 2006. Discovering the Greek Countryside at Metaponto. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. Salem, NH: Ayer. Dover, K. J. 1974. Greek Popular Morality. London: Basil Blackwell. Gallant, T. W. 1991. Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece: Reconstructing the Rural Domestic Economy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Garnsey, P. 1998. Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grove, A. T., and O. Rackham. 2001. The Nature of Mediterranean Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hands, A.  R. 1968. Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome. London: Thames & Hudson. Hansen, M. H. 1985. Demography and Democracy. Herning, Denmark: Systime. Hansen, M. H. 1988. Three Studies in Athenian Demography. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Hansen, M. H., and K. Raaflaub, eds. 1995. Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1971. The Law of Athens. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jones, N. F. 2004. Rural Athens under the Democracy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Housing and Community: Fortifications Murray, O., and S. Price, eds. 1990. The Greek City. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Osborne, R. 1985. Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osborne, R. 1987. The Classical Landscape with Figures. London: George Philip. Rich, J., and A. Wallace-Hadrill, eds. 1991. City and Country in the Ancient World. London and New York: Routledge. Sallares, R. 1991. Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Soutar, G. 1939. Nature in Greek Poetry. London: Milford. Strauss, B. 1993. Fathers and Sons in Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Traill, J. S. 1975. The Political Organization of Attica. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Traill, J. S. 1986. Demos and Trittys. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Veyne, P. 1987. A History of Private Life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Walcot, P. 1970. Greek Peasants, Ancient and Modern. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Whitehead, D. 1986. The Demes of Attica, 508/7–ca. 250 BC: A Political and Social Study. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Whittaker, C. R., ed. 1988. Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, E. M. 1988. Peasant, Citizen and Slave: The Foundation of Athenian Democracy. London: Verso Books.

EPIDEMIC DISEASE. See PLAGUE/EPIDEMIC DISEASE FOREIGNERS. See RESIDENT ALIENS, IMMIGRANTS, AND FOREIGNERS FORTIFICATIONS From the earliest times in the history of the Greeks, they constructed complex and impressive fortifications because, from the earliest times in their history, the Greeks engaged in frequent warfare. Considering the commitment of manpower, resources, time, and skill involved in the building of walls across the Greek world and across nearly two millennia, clearly the ancient Greeks felt the need to lay claim to farmland, harbors, trade routes, and so on in this fashion. The first Greeks known to us, the Mycenaeans (c. 1700–1100 BCE), built massive citadels from which they watched over and protected their territories. At Mycenae in southern Greece, for example, the inhabitants constructed a circuit of walls around their citadel that reached a height of some thirty feet. More significantly,

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the walls were double, two rows of stonework linked by reinforcing cross-walls with a fill of rubble and earth between them. This made Mycenae’s defensive walls close to forty feet thick. Later generations of Greeks found it hard to believe that mere mortals had erected such fortifications; they chose to believe, instead, that the mythical race of one-eyed monsters, the Cyclopes, had done so and called such fortifications “Cyclopean walls.” Mycenaean engineers must have possessed a great knowledge of masonry and a working understanding of the basic principles of physics because the walls they built consisted of massive stones, challenging to move even with today’s machinery; to do so in the Bronze Age required the manpower of hundreds of workers and great care as, for instance, in the case of the lintel above the so-called Lion’s Gate at Mycenae, which measures some fifteen feet long and weighs some 100 tons. In the earliest examples of such work, at Tiryns for instance, the Greeks simply piled large stones atop one another and then crammed smaller rocks in among them to fill in any gaps; they knew nothing of cement and did not even apply mortar between the blocks. Later, as in the case of Mycenae’s double walls, they trimmed

The Lion Gate at Mycenae dates to about 1300 BCE and marks the main entrance to the Bronze Age citadel. Greeks of that era constructed such massive “Cyclopean” walls (as later generations of Greeks called them) of ashlar masonry with corbelled archways to protect the heart of their communities—where their warlord-kings resided. (Larisa Irimeeva/Dreamstime .com)

Housing and Community: Fortifications

the massive stones into smoothed polygonal shapes with corners and edges that allowed them to be fitted together with one another, creating an unbroken surface. In either case, their Cyclopean walls stood very firm against enemy attack and the ravages of time. Skill in fortification was one of the things lost among the Greeks in the postMycenaean Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE), or perhaps we should say that they lost the support system that allowed such construction projects to take place. When prosperity and population growth returned in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), so did the building of substantial defensive walls, of stone, mud brick, or both. Some Greek states, like the great military power of Sparta, did not have any fortifications at all until the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE); apparently, they believed that their fighting men could best defend them and required no walls to help. On the other hand, Athens, Sparta’s chief rival, was protected from the Archaic Period onward by several forms of a defensive wall. The first, about four miles in circuit, guarded just the immediate city-center; it conformed to a style of masonry found rarely in the Bronze Age but common and typical in all the later eras of Greek history, that is, blocks of stone, much smaller than those used by the Mycenaeans, carved and chiseled into fairly regular rectangular or square shapes and set in horizontal courses one upon the other. At the height of Athenian power during the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), the inhabitants erected the most famous example of this sort of freestone work, the Long Walls, which kept them very safe from enemy attack; in addition to a new circuit around downtown Athens, two (later three) walls stretched from the city to the sea, making it an “island” of sorts. Even in the days of the Romans, the fortifications of Athens made conquest of the city challenging; the Roman general Sulla blemished his own reputation by breaching them with terrible violence in the early first century BCE. The expertise shown by the Mycenaean Greeks in the construction of fortified gates and towers continued in their descendants of later periods, with the necessary modifications. The early Greeks projected layers of stone perpendicular to their walls along the side or sides of their gates for added security; sometimes, they projected the walls themselves outward in square or half-dome fashion to give their own warriors better vantage points from which to observe and counteract enemy forces. Their descendants often transformed these various projections into full-blown towers of square or rounded shape, sometimes multistoried or with outer gates beyond inner ones to provide yet another layer of protection, and yet another location (a confined one at that) for combat between defenders and attackers. Of course, towers also existed in the Greek world as detached structures where needed, as at harbors, as points of refuge, defense, and reconnaissance. Athens was not alone in having significant fortification walls in Classical times; the tradition had reignited among their cousins on the shores of western

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Turkey (ancient Ionia) back in the Archaic Period and had spread across most of the Greek world (including Athens itself ). By Hellenistic times, new methods of siege warfare, required by the fact that more and more places had such fortifications, really made walls a must for most city-states. Yet the old Athenian model no longer sufficed. Communities poured resources into multiple sets or curtains of walls, much thinner than those of previous eras but more complicated in design and arrangement; indeed, they might even be set up to entrap attackers, as used to be done in the design of gates and towers. To prevent an enemy siege-engine from reaching the walls at all, a city-state might invest in the excavation of a ditch around the outside of the fortifications. Also, more communities followed the example of Athens and other city-states in developing fortresses (of various sizes and shapes) to defend outlying territory and provide distracting points of attack for enemy invaders. By the time the Romans completed their conquest of the Greek world, fortresses and walls marked it just about everywhere. Major engineering accomplishments and outlays of resources, fortifications symbolized in a most graphic way the Greek culture of militarism and competition, as well as clear political autonomy. See also: Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Housing and Community: Palace Complexes, Bronze Age; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Science and Technology: Engineering FURTHER READING Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frederiksen, R. 2010. Greek City Walls of the Archaic Period, 900–480 BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kern, P. B. 1999. Ancient Siege Warfare. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lawrence, A. W. 1979. Greek Aims in Fortification. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McCredie, J. R. 1966. Fortified Military Camps in Attica. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Munn, M. 1993. The Defense of Attica. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Winter, F. E. 1971. Greek Fortifications. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

FURNITURE AND FURNISHINGS Much of the archaeological record of private dwellings in the ancient Greek world has been lost to us. Moreover, the contents of such dwellings, being constructed typically of perishable materials, have not generally survived centuries of decay. As a consequence, we must often reconstruct the appearance of Greek household

Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings

furnishings from evidence primarily available to us, such as passing descriptions in literary accounts and depictions on extant works of art. Ancient Greek homes contained different sorts of furniture for sitting. A kind of stool, known as a diphros, came in a variety of forms. One popular form consisted of nothing more than a square frame attached to two pairs of crossed legs, resembling a TV tray table; sometimes fashioned out of bronze but usually out of wood, its seat was made of fabric straps or leather straps attached to the frame, and the legs could fold, making this diphros highly portable. A related form consisted of a cushioned seat partially detachable and foldable with the legs. Other diphroi had wickerwork or wooden sitting-boards supported by four perpendicular legs. The klismos provided more comfortable and longer-term sitting; this was a chair, the seat back of which leaned backward at roughly a 30-degree angle and curved at the top to wrap around the upper back of the sitter. The hard, wooden seat of the klismos might be topped by a cushion or a pile of blankets. Its four legs typically did not stand perpendicular to the sitting-board; instead, the front legs curved forward and the back legs curved backward, adding to the sculpted look of this chair. Greeks called their high-backed armchairs thronos (from which derives our English word, throne). In their temples, the gods occupied such chairs, usually with seat backs that reached up to their heads (a sign of greatest honor); in private homes, the homeowner and his most important guests sat in thronoi, typically with seat backs extending only up to the person’s lower back. Again, being seated in a thronos served as an illustration of respect, not to mention the fact that thronoi were usually equipped with the best cushioned sitting-boards. The klismos, and more frequently the thronos, might be accompanied by a sphelas, or footstool, not much different from its counterparts sold in modern times; some sphelates were actually attached to the front legs of a thronos. The presence of the sphelas among Greek household furnishings is especially interesting from a cultural perspective, considering that the Greeks associated this particular item of furniture with the Persian kings, and therefore regarded it in popular prejudice as a sign of luxurious decadence and haughtiness. Greeks did not sleep in what people in the United States would recognize as beds; instead, they made use of benches or klinai. A kline¯ might have folding legs like some kinds of diphros did; in such a case, it typically would not have much cushioning, but rather simply some throw blankets on top of the bed straps that stretched across the rectangular frame. Other klinai had fixed perpendicular legs and more abundant wool or feather cushioning; the cushioning might rest upon bed straps or upon a rectangular sitting-board. Such klinai might be equipped with headboards, footboards, both or neither, and these varied klinai served as the beds of ancient Greeks; they were essentially benches with more or less padding, topped

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by woolen, linen, or animal-hide blankets, sheets, and pillows (like the mattresses, stuffed with wool or feathers). The kline¯ with headboard, or with headboard, footboard, and backboard, all cushioned, became the couch on which Greeks would relax, entertain visitors, and especially take their meals. It was customary in the homes of the well-off, especially in the Classical (490–323 BCE) and Hellenistic (323–30 BCE) eras, for klinai to be arranged along three sides of the dining room, with tables in front of the klinai on which the meal would be served; members of the household and their guests would recline (the very word in English ultimately derives from the Greek kline¯), two per couch, next to their table. In more luxuriously furnished homes, each dining couch was accompanied by an elongated version of the footstool, to make it easier for diners to get up and down from their seats. The Greeks characterized their tables, or trapezai, according to how many legs they had, either four-legged square tables, or three-legged or one-legged oval or circular tables. Tables tended to stand low to the floor, since they were used primarily during meals while reclining. Greek bedrooms did not contain dressers or nightstands as in modern American homes, at least not until Roman times. Instead, clothing, bedding, and personal articles, such as perfume jars, combs, or jewelry, were stored in trunks (kibotoi) and boxes (kistai), typically wooden, sometimes of more precious materials like ivory or gold, with various levels of artistic design and decoration. Tall baskets called kalathoi, woven out of natural grasses and other plants and shaped like upside-down bells, stored cloth and yarn for sewing and weaving, and perhaps even dirty clothes like a modern-day hamper. Greeks were also fond of hanging personal items on the walls of rooms, using nails or pegs. Since Greek homes had few windows, there was not much call for glass windowpanes (which did exist in the Aegean world as far back as Minoan times) or window drapery. There might be windows in an upper story of the house (if it had one), but these would typically be open to the air, sealed only by wooden shutters. Greek families relied on their home’s open courtyard or peristyle to provide natural light into the rooms surrounding it. This was often not sufficient and, of course, of no help at night, so Greek homes also needed means of artificial lighting. There were various kinds of torches to choose from, often fixed on lampstands to keep them burning up high; their flammable materials consisted of wood, pine resin, pitch, and wax. Greeks also used oil lamps of metal or baked clay, commonly bowl-shaped with a flaming wick at one end and a handle at the other, and filled with olive oil. They provided better light than candles, were just as portable, and more reliable (especially for those who moved from house party to house party at night). Although Greece’s climate is largely temperate, winter cold was still a factor in ancient Greek homes and so one of the most important furnishings was the

Housing and Community: Health and Illness

hearth fire, or hestia (a circular firepit or, more commonly, a stone altar atop which the family kept a burning fire), as well as fire cauldrons (resembling modern barbecue kettles, only with tripod legs in most cases); while the former remained fixed in the central room of the house, the latter were portable and were placed in any room where heat (and often light) was needed. The floors of most Greek homes would have been made of packed earth or simple building stone, with wealthier homes paved in colored tiles and even mosaics of complex imagery, especially in certain rooms (such as the dining room). There were no carpets or rugs as in Middle Eastern and Asian cultures, no tapestries as in Medieval European castles, and not even much sculpture as in well-to-do Roman homes. There does not seem to be much evidence of decoration in ancient Greek homes. Greeks devoted much more artistic energy to the public spaces of their lives, like their marketplaces and temples, and seem to have primarily prized functionality within the private space. Yet, depending on the wealth and status of its occupants, an ancient Greek home’s furniture and furnishings might be quite elaborately ornamented and intricate in design (especially from Hellenistic times), thus combining functionality and display. See also: Arts: Mosaics; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Cloth-Making; Masonry; Metalworking; Family and Gender: Inheritance; Marriage; Food and Drink: Cooking; Kitchens/Kitchen Utensils; Meals; Housing and Community: Housing Architecture; Recreation and Social Customs: Symposia FURTHER READING Adrianou, D. 2009. The Furniture and Furnishings of Ancient Greek Houses and Tombs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richter, G. M. A. 1966. The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscan and Romans. London: Phaidon Press.

GYNAIKO¯NITIS. See ANDRO¯N AND GYNAIKO¯NITIS

HEALTH AND ILLNESS The ancient Greeks regarded health (hygieia) as constituting a balance of substances within the body and the proper functioning of its structures. Moreover, their attention to athletics especially taught them that proper diet, that is, the quality of food and the nutrients taken into the body, was crucial to good health. They

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also understood that one could not enjoy good health without the proper climate and environment, that is, without clean air, clean water, moderate heat and dampness, and sanitary living and working conditions. The ancient Greeks sought good health first and foremost from the divine. Most seem to have believed firmly that illness (arroˉste¯ma, nosos) came to human beings (as well as animals and plant life) as a result of the displeasure of the gods (sometimes even seemingly unprovoked). In order to address such supernatural causes of illness, Greeks turned to superstitious and magical practices and especially to rituals performed in honor of deities dedicated to healing. These included a whole array of Olympian gods, such as Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, Dionysus, and especially Apollo, all of whom were thought to possess health-bringing powers. Still, ancient Greeks seem to have more often sought the assistance of localized demigods or heroes in their efforts to stave off or recover from illness. The hero Trophonios, for example, one of the mythical builders of the original temple to Apollo at Delphi, became an oracle of the god after being swallowed into the ground at Lebadea in Boeotia. Those who sought to consult Trophonios for purposes of healing engaged in katabasis, literally descending into a pit at night (after suitable physical and mental preparation) to await the wisdom of the hero god in dreams or visions (enkoime¯sis, what scholars call by the Roman term incubation). By the third century BCE, attendance at the healing shrine of Trophonios had become so popular that the local leaders moved the point of divine contact to a more conveniently accessible cave in a hill overlooking the sanctuary. Similarly, the demigod Amphiaraos of Argos (who had also been swallowed up when Zeus opened the ground with one of his lightning bolts) provided healing to human beings through his oracular shrine at Oropos (along the border of Attica and Boeotia). People came to sleep there (again expecting divine revelation and healing in dreams) in rooms along a colonnade, resting on skins of rams that they had sacrificed to the hero. The most important healing deity of the Greek world, Asclepius, also began as a hero. From the fifth century BCE onward, he succeeded to his father Apollo’s central place in providing miraculous healing to mortals. Worshipped in tandem with Apollo, as well as with his own daughters, Hygeia and Panacea, Asclepius had major shrines at Epidaurus and Pergamum and on the island of Cos. As at the shrines of other demigods, people seeking health from Asclepius offered him animal sacrifice, purified themselves through bathing and fasting, and then engaged in incubation (usually in a large hall) to receive divine instruction; the priests of Asclepius interpreted these instructions for treatment. Many Greek authors wrote about the healing experiences at the shrines of Asclepius. The “Women Making a Dedication and Sacrifice to Asclepius” by the

Housing and Community: Health and Illness

Hellenistic poet Herodas, for instance, features characters visiting the healing shrine on Cos in thanksgiving for the god’s help. In his “Sacred Tales,” the Roman era orator Aelius Aristides attested in great detail to himself receiving the god’s healing through dreams. The ancient Greek medical tradition, which rejected supernatural causes of illness in favor of wholly natural ones, seems to have begun at centers of healing cults. Greeks with a medical or scientific bent, lacking any knowledge or even suspicion of the existence of microorganisms, regarded illness as caused entirely by factors within the human body. According to the theory generally accepted among ancient Greek physicians and medical writers, good health resulted from the proper balance among the humors (chymoi), the four essential fluids of the body, first postulated by the philosopher Empedocles of Akragas (c. 493–c. 432 BCE); some doctors, like Praxagoras of Cos in the late fourth/early third centuries BCE, actually proposed the existence of eleven humoral fluids. For those who subscribed to the humoral theory, deficiency, excess, or deterioration among the four humors (blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm) led to illness; climate, lifestyle (especially exercise), and diet could mitigate or worsen any imbalance in the humoral system. The Hellenistic physician Erasistratus, for example, believed that excess phlegm stopped the nerves from functioning, thus causing apoplexy, and that too much blood caused fevers, inflammation, stomach and liver diseases, and so on. On the other hand, those physicians, like Diocles of Carystus in the fourth century BCE, who attempted to trace the flow of pneuma (vital air) within the human body, attributed unhealthful conditions, such as paralysis, to the blockage of pneuma. Greek medical writers described many sorts of illness. For instance, extant texts identify different types of headache as common, explained as being caused by too much air or phlegm in the circulatory system blocking the proper flow of blood to the brain. Greeks understood that headaches could be brought on by excessive heat and other such temporary factors or that they could be chronic in nature. Physicians and dieticians recommended solanacea, opium, and other plants, as well as animal products and oils, as treatment, typically in liquid form. They prescribed similar treatment for epilepsy, which, when regarded as a medical condition rather than an act of the gods, was explained as caused by an excess of phlegm. In ancient Greek, the term asthma referred to all sorts of respiratory distress where the patient could not adequately breathe; a number of cases discussed by the ancient writers indicate the particular symptoms of what we would today call asthma. By the time of the physician Galen in the second century CE, the term was used much more narrowly to describe the chronic medical condition familiar today, though it appears to have occurred much less frequently than in modern times. Medical writings reveal the links identified by Greek doctors between pregnancy

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or giving birth and the onset of asthma in women; when identified as chronic, they associated the illness with old age, as well as climate and other environmental factors. Physicians suggested various anti-inflammatory and cathartic fumigants made from minerals, plants, and animal products in the treatment of respiratory conditions, particularly asthma narrowly defined, with the intention of drying out mucus in the obstructed airways. Besides respiratory problems, the main forms of illness among the ancient Greeks seem to have been gastrointestinal or dermatological. They also suffered from various urinary issues and kidney diseases. Although ancient Greek authors do not provide evidence of heart disease, paleopathological studies have confirmed the common occurrence of atherosclerosis. Cancers, including breast cancer, were common enough to gain notice but, of course, they had no effective cures for them. Ancient Greeks seem to have suffered from many forms of rheumatism, including arthritis and podagral or gout. They associated the condition with climatic changes in spring and autumn, as well as with excessive dampness in one’s environment. Physicians and medical writers understood the symptoms to be the highly painful inflammation of the joints and, using the humoral theory, explained this as caused by thick humoral deposits on the joints and especially on the nerves attached to them. The Greeks in general also recognized that this impairment of health tended to affect the elderly more than others. Doctors treated the condition with cold compresses on the swollen body parts. Herpes impaired health as a sexually transmitted disease, but the ancient Greeks did not apparently suffer from syphilis or gonorrhea. Greek medicine focused much less on this sort of thing than in modern society, instead giving greater attention to infertility, which was less often seen as a matter of the congenital sterility of either partner (such as structural problems in their reproductive organs) than as an illness reflective of larger issues within the man’s and especially the woman’s body. Various factors, dietary, environmental, humoral, and so on, were identified as potential causes of a pregnant woman’s uterus becoming “too warm” or “too cold,” “too dry” or “too moist,” to support the sperm properly, for example. Greek doctors concocted hundreds of medicines to fix the “illness” involved and induce fertility, made from natural substances; those made from myrrh or incense would actually have had the effect of destroying bacteria and cleansing the areas treated, and thus, perhaps, of curing the condition. Some infertility remedies were inhaled in gaseous form or drunk in liquid form, while many were applied externally or in bathing, or by means of pessaries with wax, fat, honey, or resin as their bases. Greek medicine frequently differentiated the illnesses of children from those of adults. They considered children more prone to coughing, vomiting, and various other bodily discharges because of the “greater moisture” of their physical

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constitutions. Medical texts and other sources of evidence describe the inflammations, fevers, and even convulsions associated with young children when teething, as well as the common cases of tonsillitis, swellings in the lymph nodes, gallstones and kidney stones, worms in the digestive system, spinal curvature, and jaundice. Viral diarrhea and amoebic dysentery appear to have been the most frequent causes of death among ancient Greek children. Besides physical ailments that impaired health, the ancients also paid much attention to mental illness. They usually attempted to explain its occurrence through the humoral theory. So, for example, Greek medical experts attributed chronic emotional depression to too much black bile in one’s body, suicidal or hallucinogenic behavior to too much blood, and insanity to excessive yellow bile. Nonmedical writers identified other causes, as when the historian Herodotus attributed the madness of the Spartan king Cleomenes I to damage in his brain brought on by overconsumption of alcohol. Doctors recommended various medicines (hellebore in particular), changes in diet, exercise, even music, as treatments for mental illness. Of course, the Greeks also continued to blame episodes of mental instability or madness on punishment from the gods, just as in the legendary cases of Pentheus, Heracles, Ajax, and Orestes. Possession by evil spirits was also considered a possibility in such circumstances; Plato’s pupil Xenocrates suggested that daimones, typically regarded as the souls of heroes watching over humanity, might indeed be forces of evil, hence giving us the more modern meaning of the term “demon.” Health and illness were of great concern not only to everyday Greeks and their physicians but also to philosophers, who speculated on their relation to the human spirit and to political and social conditions; the medical notions that opposites cure opposites and that everything should be done in moderation to ensure good health appealed to philosophical sensibilities. In the end, ancient Greeks of all persuasions would have advised that one could avoid most illnesses through eating good food, breathing good air, getting good sleep, and engaging in good exercise. See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Housing and Community: Country Life; Infrastructure; Plague/Epidemic Disease; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Magic; Olympian Gods; Oracles; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Medicine; Zoology; Primary Documents: “Hippocrates” on Diagnosis and Observation of Illnesses (Late Fifth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Aufderheide, A.  C., and C. Rodríguez-Martín. 1998. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Edelstein, E. J., and L. Edelstein, eds. 1998. Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Garland, R. 1995. The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Greco-Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Ancient Athens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Grmek, M. D. 1989. Diseases in the Ancient Greek World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Jenkins, I., and V. Turner. 2009. The Greek Body. London: British Museum Press. King, H., ed. 2005. Health in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Kiple, K. F., ed. 1993. The Cambridge World History of Human Disease. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Roberts, C., and K. Manchester. 2007. The Archaeology of Disease. 3rd ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Roccatagliata, G. 1986. A History of Ancient Psychiatry. New York: Praeger. Wright, J. P., and P. Potter, eds. 2000. Psyche and Soma. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

HOUSEHOLD RELIGION Public religion in the form of sacrifices, festivals, and other widely attended events certainly played a significant part in Greek culture, especially in solidifying group identity and promoting particular communal values. Just as significant, though, were the private religious practices of Greek individuals and families in their homes. These also served to establish identity on the smaller scale of the household and its associated friends or relatives, and they especially sought to avert danger and promote good outcomes. Household religion began even before stepping foot inside a Greek home with ritual practices for preventing evil, misfortune, or illness from entering there. For instance, Greeks sometimes placed inscriptions above their doorways claiming that Heracles, the demigod, dwelled there—bad things or bad people had better not even try getting in. They sometimes piled a mound of stones outside the entrance, or perhaps just a single conical stone, to represent the god Apollo Agyeios (of the Street); they poured olive oil on this holy image and decorated it with ribbons of cloth. Kneeling before the stone(s) and touching it (them) gently with the hand while praying would invoke the protection of the god, especially against illness in the family, The Greeks called such stone markers or piles of stones hermae. By late Archaic times, they were carving many such herms into short stone pillars with busts of the gods atop them. The most well-known from literary and archaeological evidence are the rectangular herms from Athens, topped by the image of the god Hermes, and carved in front with the form of an erect phallus; one would have seen such a herm

Housing and Community: Household Religion

at the entrance to any Athenian home. The god Hermes not only safely guided the spirits of the dead into the afterlife but also stood as a guardian against the dangers of the night. Thus, Greeks believed his marker would also protect the home from evil; some likely also considered its phallus as a harbinger of familial fertility. To show how seriously Athenians took this aspect of their household worship, when thousands of herms were attacked in the span of one night in the year 415 BCE, the images of Hermes and the phalluses chopped up, the people ordered an investigation of what they regarded as heinous religious vandalism. One particular vandal brought up on charges for mutilating the herms was Alcibiades, one of the most prominent Athenian aristocrats, a political leader and military commander of great achievement. His status and reputation did not protect him from condemnation, however. In the midst of a terrible war especially, the Athenians could not help but fear the supernatural consequences of desecrating the herms; indeed, when the major expedition they had recently dispatched against Sicily ended in horrifying disaster, the Athenians had no doubt that the wrath of Hermes had come upon them. Household religion thus had political ramifications. Outside a Greek house, one might also have found a Triple Hecate, representing the goddess of witchcraft and magic. Such a statue featured three images of Hecate attached to one another’s backs with the appearance of rotating. Women leaving the house focused their prayers at this statue, hoping to avert dangers, even threats from Hecate herself. The above examples, and Juniper-wood statuette of Hecate from Hellenistic especially the worship of Hec- Egypt, c. 304–30 BCE. Ancient Greeks often ate, remind us of just how much depicted this goddess of mysterious, magical, Greek private or household reli- underworld powers in triple-form as a talisman gious practice was apotropaic. of protection, as in this case, where the statuette probably warded off evil energies from a room in Ancient Greeks truly feared the owner’s home. (The Metropolitan Museum of Hecate, for instance, a goddess Art/Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1939)

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of many, primarily destructive powers, whom barking dogs and ghosts, it was said, accompanied on moonless nights to terrorize humans unless they could somehow placate her; they associated Hecate with legendary bloodsucking/cannibalistic creatures like Mormo (who had eaten her own children), Empousa (a deadly shape-shifter), Lamia (who turned to murdering children after her own were killed by Hera), and Gello (a child kidnapper current even in modern Greek nursery legends). Ancient Greek children learned about all these bogey spirits, which apparently helped their parents keep them in line, and, when they grew up, they continued to engage in many private rituals to placate them. As an example, Athenian women painted the doors of their homes with pitch to ward off ghosts on the third day of their Anthesteria festival (held in February). Once past the street entrance to an ancient Greek home, one would have entered the aule¯, an enclosed courtyard where each family maintained its own selected array of statues and small altars of the gods, focal points for particular religious ceremonies, usually prayers and libations. Many of these had to do with Zeus, highest of the Greek gods. In the guise of a partly coiled snake figure (a common Greek image of a guardian entity), Zeus called Ktesios (Protector of Property) or Pasios (Protector of All) was thought to look after the daily routine of the family members and protect their stored goods (against thieves, for instance, as noted by the comic playwright Menander). On their courtyard altars, Greek families would offer him little containers (  panspermia) decorated with woolen ribbons and filled with water, fruits, and olive oil. Zeus Herkeios (Of the Fence) also had his altar in the courtyard, promising to protect the entire home in exchange for proper sacrifices and libations; at Athens, every candidate for public office was expected to have in good maintenance his own altar to Zeus Herkeios or forfeit his eligibility. Families depicted Zeus Kataibates (The Descender) as a stone ax; his altar in the home guarded against lightning strikes, a pretty common occurrence in the Greek territories. Last, but certainly not least, when the man of the house held a symposion, he and his dinner guests poured their first and third libations of wine to Zeus Meilichios (The Propitious), in household art depicted again as a snake or sometimes as a seated cornucopia-like figure. When one crossed the courtyard to enter a family’s house proper, one almost immediately saw the hearth fire, or hestia, usually a small altar (permanent or portable) with a fire continually blazing atop it to represent the goddess of the same name. In all the ceremonies of family life, sacred and otherwise, the goddess Hestia remained central. A Greek proverb said, “Begin with Hestia,” that is, the right way. Oaths were sworn before her altar, brides “introduced” to it as new members of the family, infants paraded in arms around it when formally named in the Amphidromia ritual, and the deceased honored by the hearth fire being momentarily snuffed out. Not only were the first pieces of a private sacrificial meal offered to

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Hestia, but before all meals in the home, little bits of food were placed in the fire, and afterward drops of wine were sprinkled on the floor nearby. Indeed, ancient Greeks regarded the hestia as the unifier of all those who took part in meals in the home, which is why the altar served as a symbol of hospitality (xenia), one of the most important Greek cultural values, A guest felt protected by the gods simply by being near the sacred hestia, and the nearby table with salt and a drink offering atop it, even though intended for the goddess and not the guest, nevertheless made the latter feel welcome. Symposia, despite their frequent frivolity, drunkenness, and high spirits, always had elements of strong religious solemnity about them, including prayers and hymns, besides offerings, to the gods. Along with Hestia and Zeus (Protector of Guests), Dionysus, god of wine and celebration, not surprisingly, figured prominently and regularly. He was also remembered in private homes during the great festivals of the city; on the second day of the Anthesteria mentioned earlier, for instance, families and their friends competed in his honor through silent winedrinking contests behind closed doors. Drinking wine was a means by which private individuals in their homes thought they could commune directly with Dionysus by literally taking him into their own bodies. They could commune closely with other deities as well, such as when a bride and a groom took separate ritual baths to make themselves pure for one another before their wedding. The water in which they bathed came from rivers or springs (like the fountain of Callirrhoe in Athens), which were themselves considered holy entities; in other words, the bride and groom placed themselves literally inside the deity. To gain assistance in bearing children and prosperity for the household, Greeks across many communities honored in their homes a spirit they called simply agathos daimoˉn, “the good deity,” along with his partner, agathe¯ tyche¯, “good luck.” These entities received a few drops of unmixed wine as a libation after meals were taken. Similar in purpose was the household worship of the twin hero gods Castor and Pollux as the Anakes or Anaktes (derived from the Mycenaean Greek term for kings), which seems to have spread from the Peloponnese, where the twins were especially prominent at Sparta, to a number of other Greek communities, as far away as Sicilian Akragas and Thessalian Pherae. In Athens, notably, families would “entertain” the “Lords” by preparing a couch for them and setting before it a humble meal of cheese, cakes, olives, and leeks; the entire city-state performed a similar theoxenia (ceremony of divine hospitality) for them in the Prytaneum, the “city hall” of Athens. As the Anakes, Castor and Pollux were not depicted in human form but rather in symbolic form, as two amphorae entwined by snakes or as a gateway with snake-entwined uprights and two transverse beams instead of one.

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Household religion also included rituals of sorrow, like the Adoneia at Athens. Here, women planted seeds of lettuce and wheat in vases and placed them on their rooftops during the hottest days of summer. Naturally, the seeds sprouted quickly, but just as naturally, they quickly withered and died. The women put on mourning grab for these “gardens of Adonis” and cried in lamentation, recognizing the fragility of existence. All this symbolized the short life of the legendary Adonis, tragically killed in a hunting accident. Yet the household ritual included joy as well, because, according to myth, the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone kept his spirit alive through their love for him; Athenian women celebrated this, hoping for similar good fortune for themselves and their loved ones. Finally, consideration of household religion should include the special religious inclinations of artisans, whose homes frequently doubled as their shops. Every type of artisan prayed to particular deities and especially to Athena and her attendant Nikes (spirits of victory or success), who were said to help craftspersons perfect the quality of their work at every stage and to ensure their profits. Like any other householder, they believed in nefarious creatures that might interfere with their progress, like Asbestos (The Unquenchable Fire) or Smaragos (The Crack-Maker)! So, ancient Greek households were busy places of religious ritual, even more busy on a day-to-day basis than the communities in which they formed the building blocks. Families and their guests regularly engaged in religious ceremonies to gain the protection of the divine realm for themselves. They also regularly utilized religious ceremonies in the home to celebrate with their gods, thank their gods, and demonstrate their kinship and camaraderie with their gods. See also: Arts: Dance; Mosaics; Music; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Lyric; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adoption; Burial; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Friendship and Love; Marriage; Men; Weddings; Women; Food and Drink: Hospitality; Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings; Housing Architecture; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Asylum; Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Translated by J. Raffan. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Faraone, C. A. 1992. Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Häag, R., ed. 1994. Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence. Stockholm: Svenska institutet i Athen. Herman, G. 1987. Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nilsson, M. P. 1940. Greek Folk Religion. New York: Columbia University Press.

Housing and Community: Housing Architecture Ogden, D., ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patterson, C. B. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pomeroy, S. B. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pulleyn, S. 1997. Prayer in Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

HOUSING ARCHITECTURE Although the earliest Greek housing appears to have consisted of simple huts with walls constructed from thatch or clay, at least by the time of the Homeric epics, mud brick and stone architecture were in use for dwellings. After that shift, Greek housing remained fairly consistent in many of its features, despite variations in size and shape, across long periods of time. Archaeological remains and analysis of Homer’s stories reveal a fairly typical layout for private homes, at least for the stone mansions of the wealthy and powerful, from the Bronze Age to the early Archaic Period (that is, from the seventeenth through the eighth centuries BCE). There were three sections of such homes: the aule¯, the doma, and the thalamoi. The aule¯ was an enclosed courtyard, entered through a door from the street. Evidence suggests that the courtyard would have been used for household religious ceremonies (as it contained a statue or statues of the gods), for storage, and for a variety of productive activities (like milling grain, for example, or baking in an outdoor oven). All around the inside of the aule¯ would have been a covered colonnade, thus forming a portico in front of the house itself; to enter the house, one crossed the courtyard from the street gate to this portico. The doma was the house proper, typically divided into several rooms. The central room, as in the palaces of the Mycenaean Greek kings, was the megaron, the hearth room; within it, surrounded by columns and windowed walls was the hearth, or hestia, literally a circular firepit in the middle of the room, upon which the family’s meals (especially on festive occasions) would have been cooked. The megaron also served as the gathering place for the family’s guests. The thalamoi consisted of the private chambers entered from the megaron. They included rooms where the family members and their servants slept as well as storage rooms for the family’s valuable possessions. The thalamoi might consist of one or two stories. From the later Archaic Period onward, there was much carryover from earlier times, but changes did take place in the architecture of Greek homes. Most Greeks came to live in single-story houses (sing. oikia) built out of mud brick (sometimes on a foundation of stonework), with floors of packed earth and either flat roofs of mud brick or slightly pitched wooden roofs covered over in terracotta tiles;

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scholars estimate that downtown Athens, for example, had roughly 6,000 such oikiai, in addition to tenement housing for the less well-off. Wealthier citizens could afford a second story, fully stone construction (including paved floors), and perhaps even additional, larger homes in the countryside; given enough space to work with, their houses might even be divided between a men’s section and a women’s section, which was considered the height of respectability in most Greek communities. The open-air courtyard, known as a peristyle (  peristylos), became the centerpiece of many homes, and the largest space within them, enclosing an altar for worship of the gods and sometimes a water well or cistern. The peristyle of a large country house excavated near Mt. Aigaleos outside ancient Athens measures thirty by thirty-six feet; even the modest “House of the Cobbler” discovered near the Athenian agora has a courtyard measuring roughly eighteen by twentyone feet. In homes with peristyles, rooms for various uses (sleeping quarters, storage, workshops) now surrounded the courtyard and opened onto it on three of its sides. On the fourth side, directly across from the courtyard gate, was a three-walled room open to the courtyard. This prostas contained the hearth fire, typically reduced to the size of a small altar. The hestia might no longer be the main place for cooking (since additional rooms around the courtyard or behind the prostas in larger homes might be used for that purpose), but nonetheless still had fundamental significance in all the ceremonies of family life. On either side and behind the prostas were arranged dining rooms and sleeping quarters for the immediate family members, and sometimes kitchen facilities and bathrooms. Behind these might be a second peristyle or garden area in more affluent homes. Most Greek dwellings were more modest and therefore did not possess all of the features noted above. They often centered on a corridor (  pastas) instead of a peristyle, with rooms arranged around it to form a tighter, more square-shaped building. One of these rooms would contain some sort of hestia; open-air or garden space, if available at all, would have been much more restricted. Compared to modern homes, in the United States, for instance, ancient Greek homes did not have much “curb appeal.” They possessed no front yards open to public view, instead fronting directly onto the street, and they often shared adjoining walls with neighboring houses, as is the case with townhouses in most European cities today. Their outside appearance was roughly rectangular and quite simple; their outer walls were bare; and they possessed very few, and usually, narrow windows. In addition, they typically had only one entry or exit, a door from the street that led into a narrow passageway to the open-air peristyle. All this contributed to an interior environment relatively protected against the elements, especially the high temperatures of the Mediterranean summer.

Housing and Community: Infrastructure

The wealthiest Greeks might have had double-peristyle homes ten times as large as the “average” (which would conform pretty well to today’s median-sized home), but archaeological evidence at Athens, Olynthus, and elsewhere still suggests that the range in sizes of ancient Greek houses was not anywhere near as extreme as it is in modern times. Regardless, Greek houses of any size were eminently similar in design, to create a very secluded world in contrast to the very public experience of their marketplaces, harbors, temples, and entertainment venues. Greek families valued their privacy and lavished whatever decoration they would on the interior dwelling spaces in which they lived rather than on the exterior façade to be appreciated by strangers. Not surprisingly, where the entryway of their homes met the street stood a herm, an image of the god Hermes, guardian of pathways and travel, atop a stone pillar carved with an erect phallus; it was a superstitious totem against forces of evil, the forces lurking outside the home. See also: Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Fathers; Men; Women; Food and Drink: Meals; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Furniture and Furnishings; Household Religion; Palace Complexes, Bronze Age; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Symposia FURTHER READING Cahill, N. 2002. Household and City Organization at Olynthus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1984. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Murray, O., and S. Price, eds. 1990. The Greek City from Homer to Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, C. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

ILLNESS. See HEALTH AND ILLNESS IMMIGRANTS. See RESIDENT ALIENS, IMMIGRANTS, AND FOREIGNERS INFRASTRUCTURE From very early in their history, the ancient Greeks invested heavily in particular types of infrastructure. They usually paid for these projects out of special funds

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collected from the community or from wealthy benefactors or leaders, but sometimes a number of communities would pool their resources together to make the project happen. The Greeks found it beneficial to invest in infrastructure projects such as roads, streets, bridges, canals, and harbor facilities. Archaeological investigations have revealed evidence that the ancient Greeks had the skill, ingenuity, and technology to conduct all sorts of sophisticated roadwork (hodopoia) in their territories, going as far back as Mycenaean times (c. 1700–1100 BCE). They attempted to improve transportation and travel through terracing land to yield desired gradients, cutting into cliff sides to provide wideenough access, designing switchbacks and pull-offs in mountainous terrain, constructing ramps on inclines and declines and bridges across gaps, and paving streets and longer roads with gravel, rubble, and slabs of stone. Over long distances, paved roads (hodoi) may not have been that practicable, or that useful, given the rugged topography of Greece. Still, a network of cart roads did crisscross the Peloponnesus. A paved road ran between Athens and the sacred site at Delphi in central Greece; once inside the temenos, it became the Sacred Way (hiera hodos) there, its stone paving blocks very regular. A paved road also led up to Delphi from the harbor of Cirrha in the Gulf of Corinth (about six miles distant), into which loads of building stone were brought by ship for constructing the road itself as well as for erecting the structures in the sacred precinct. The road from Corinth’s port, Lechaion, was also paved. Corinth appears to have been a focal point for roadway infrastructure. In the late sixth century BCE, the Cypselid tyrant Periander implemented the construction of a paved track for the transport of ships and cargoes across the Isthmus of Corinth. This diolkos was between three and six meters wide and stretched roughly three and a half miles in a curve from the Saronic Gulf in the east to the Gulf of Corinth in the west. Loads of building materials, merchant ships (weighing anywhere from ten to thirty tons) and their cargoes (shipped separately), and apparently also military vessels in some circumstances were dragged up onto wagons or wheeled carts and pulled by dozens of oxen overland along the track. As the incline of the topography increased, the transport vehicles were shifted into snug grooves (about five feet apart and just large enough for the wheels to move in them) carved into the paving stones; these wheel tracks improved handling and control of the heavy loads. In addition, at particular locations, the Corinthians erected horizontal winches and vertical capstans from which ropes were attached to the transport vehicles, which made hauling the ships along the trackway that much easier. Greek sources mention similar diolkoi elsewhere in the Greek territories, though none were as complex. The remains of one have been found running between Athens and Mt. Pentelikon, for example. Unlike the one-way wheel track

Housing and Community: Infrastructure

at Corinth, the one in Attica had lanes for two-way traffic, up to the mountain’s marble quarries and down to the city. Inside Greek communities, most streets (hodoi, plateiai, aguiai) would have been unpaved, others perhaps covered with packed earth, or paved with sand and pebbles. Intra-urban streets that joined up with roads leading outside of a city to sanctuaries, ports, and such, like the Panathenaic Way from Eleusis that crossed the agora inside Athens, would have been paved with gravel or stone slabs. Many communities also sat on such uneven terrain that careful street planning would have been impeded. In those places where Greeks selected a relatively flat site for a new community, such as a colony, they had the luxury of being able to create a grid of intersecting streets. The most renowned urban planner in this regard was Hippodamus of Miletus in the second half of the fifth century BCE. Although tradition attributed to him the invention of the grid pattern of urban development, the street alignment at Megara Hyblaea in Sicily in the later seventh century BCE demonstrates that it predated him by two centuries. Still, Hippodamus became the most successful popularizer of the street grid, especially with his work at Piraeus, the principal harbor district of Athens. He apparently also laid out the colony at Thurii in southern Italy (with its four parallel streets running northwest to southeast crossed perpendicularly by three other streets parallel to one another) and the grid pattern at Rhodes. At street corners as well as along streets and roads, the Greeks erected stone markers (horoi) inscribed with various sorts of information; at Athens, they also topped stone markers with carved heads of Hermes (hermai). These objects were the closest thing to signage in the Greek world. Inscriptions upon them indicated to passersby things such as place names or property owners, directions, or distances between points. Bridges (gephyrai) were not that common in the Greek world because commonly traveled routes usually avoided the obstacles involved, but where a road encountered wetland, a river or stream, or a depression in the topography, the ancient Greeks knew how to place bridges there. Sometimes the reason for the bridge was not even practical as much as ceremonial, like the one the Athenians built over the river Cephisus on the sacred way from Athens to Eleusis. Likely, the bridges in their earliest history would have been of timber, which was utilized in later constructions as well, but already by the Bronze Age, the Greeks were employing the method of pushing stone slabs across toward each other to close the gap (corbeled design), as was done in tombs. Indeed, causeways in the Argolid date from as far back as Mycenaean times. By the fifth century BCE, they were constructing bridges out of rubble, as at Marathon in Attica, and out of stone blocks using the post-and-lintel technique, as at Brauron stream, also in Attica (where the original uprights survive). A bridge connected Ortygia Island

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to the mainland section of Syracuse; another crossed the gap of about 120 feet between Chalcis on the island of Euboea and the Greek mainland; and another stretched close to 1,000 feet in length from the island of Cnidus to the mainland of Anatolia. Such sizable bridges were typically designed with removable wooden planking sitting atop stone footings. Aside from roads, streets, and bridges, the other sizable, indeed more considerable, infrastructure projects of the Greek world were canals (dioˉruges, sing. dioˉrux) and harbors (hormoi) and their attendant facilities. The ancient Greeks invested in major hydraulic engineering projects that removed water from where it was deemed not beneficial or that moved it to where it would be beneficial. In 444 BCE, for example, the renowned philosopher Empedocles of Akragas designed and organized the efforts for the drainage of the low-lying areas belonging to the city-state of Selinus on Sicily. As far back as the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greeks constructed a canal system to drain the Boeotian Lake Copais into the Aegean Sea. In later eras, this fell into disrepair, until Alexander the Great gave orders to the engineer Crates of Chalcis to replicate and renovate the old canal system. For centuries, a dam (choˉma) bridged the marshland of the lake to protect farmland around it from being flooded and to provide a transportation corridor across the wetlands. The Greeks also learned from Phoenician models how to construct canals that would bring water in to harbors for the purpose of flushing them clean of silt. Greeks worked to harness water as a means of transport through the land. The Corinthians under Periander investigated the possibility of excavating a canal for the passage of ships between the Saronic Gulf and the Corinthian Gulf, which would have greatly speeded ancient Greek shipping (especially that of the Corinthians themselves); they would no longer have had to travel all around the Peloponnesus. Unfortunately, the technology they possessed at the time could not overcome the fundamental obstacle that the two gulfs were not at the same level (the Saronic being much higher). Periander did not completely give up on the project, though; his engineers and workers soon constructed the aforementioned diolkos, or paved portage track, from gulf to gulf. Moreover, construction crews under the Roman Emperor Nero attempted the canal again, working from both coasts for a period of three months before they came to understand that even they could not accomplish their task with available techniques. Today’s canal route through the Isthmus of Corinth actually runs partly parallel to Periander’s diolkos and to the extant elements of Nero’s canal! The Egyptian Pharaoh Nechos back in the early sixth century BCE was apparently the first to conceive the notion of digging a shipping canal across the desert from the Nile to the Gulf of Suez. The Persian King Darius I furthered the Egyptian efforts; according to Herodotus, he finished the canal, while according to

Housing and Community: Infrastructure

Diodorus Siculus, he did not. Still, this work perhaps inspired Xerxes, Darius’ son, in his order to carve a one-and-a-half-mile long canal through the promontory of Athos on the peninsula of Chalcidice for the passage of his warships in preparation for the great Persian invasion of Greece in the late 480s BCE. In the early third century BCE, under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Greeks and Egyptians together either brought the old project to fruition or considerably renovated the Persian canal. The canal to Suez stretched from Bubastis along the Nile to Arsinoe on the gulf, reached a depth of about sixteen feet (sufficient for ancient maritime vessels), and was roughly one hundred fifty feet across (wide enough for two ancient warships to be rowed through it side-by-side); the Hellenistic engineers included at least one lock mechanism (diaphragma), perhaps more, to help adjust for the differential in water levels between the Nile (lower) and the Red Sea (higher). When it came to harbors, the Greeks preferred natural, sheltering bays (limenes), but were not averse to improving upon them when necessary. From early on, that is, already in the Bronze Age, they constructed breakwaters of rubble and stone to protect the entrance to their bays from the forces of the sea; a good example comes from Pylos in the western Peloponnesus. Archaeologists have identified major harbor works consisting of a stone quay and rubble breakwater on the island of Delos from the eighth century BCE. The earliest harbor works recorded in Greek texts were those commissioned by Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, in the late sixth century BCE, which included a massive breakwater (the remains of which are still extant). Close in date to this project was the construction of the rubble breakwater at Eretria that diverted a stream from silting up the harbor and interfering with ship landings. The Phoenicians at Carthage dug a landward, artificial harbor (koˉthoˉn), which the Corinthians imitated in excavating and dredging the basins of their port at Lechaion, ascribed to Periander. This was the northwestern port of the city-state, connected to a quay (protected by moles) on the Corinthian Gulf by means of a narrow channel and to the city by means of long fortification walls. Corinth’s other harbor, Cenchreae, was located on the Saronic Gulf; most of its remains date from Roman times, but the harbor moles from Hellenistic times are still extant. Certainly the most famous harbor works from ancient Greek history are those at Piraeus, the main port of Athens and the largest port in ancient Greece. Although Athens had harbor facilities at Marathon, Sounion, and Phaleron, none of these involved the sort of extensive construction and renovation undertaken at Piraeus. In the period from 490 to 470 BCE, the Athenians implemented their decision to replace Phaleron with Piraeus because the former simply did not have the deep enough anchorage or the protection from the weather needed by the sort of maritime vessels coming in to Athens at that time or for the new fleet of Athenian trireme warships.

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Athens invested considerable resources and manpower to develop the peninsula of Piraeus into its main harbor district. The three natural bays of Piraeus were renovated. The western bay, Kantharos, became for the most part a civilian trade harbor, surrounded by five stoas; its northernmost section, which could be closed off from the rest, contained military dockyards. The small central bay, Zea, served strictly military purposes with its one hundred ninety-six ship sheds (with terracotta roofs supported by limestone pillars) for the refitting and repair of the Athenian fleet; little Munychia on the east side of the peninsula did the same. Taken all together, the Athenian harbors boasted close to four hundred ship sheds for naval vessels. The entire peninsula of Piraeus was fortified landward and seaward and linked to the downtown heart of Athens (nearly four miles away) by the Long Walls. In 429 BCE, the mouths of the harbors, especially Zea and Munychia, were also protected by moles, which made both entrances closable by massive boom chains. In the fourth century BCE, the architect Philon of Eleusis designed the Arsenal (a facility for storage of warship equipment) in Zea Harbor. As noted above, in the middle of the fifth century BCE, Hippodamus of Miletus laid out the town of Piraeus with its famous orthogonal grid of streets amidst the harbors. There were two marketplaces, the main agora and the smaller or “Hippodamian” agora, necessary because of the volume of trade conducted in Piraeus. So many people came to live and work there, citizens and resident aliens, that Piraeus had its own workshops, temples, hostels, even brothels, and boasted two theater complexes for their entertainment. Other city-states imitated the Athenian example in varied ways. In the fourth century BCE, the west harbor on Cnidus, for instance, and the north harbor on Aegina were reserved for naval vessels. They had towers and other fortifications, and set-back entrances. The breakwater at Cnidus sat ninety feet deep and was angled to hold against the stress caused by crashing waves. On Rhodes, the quays of ashlar masonry were attached to the inside of fortified walls. Indeed, the Rhodians did an exceptional job of shoring up their five natural bays to create one of the busiest port communities in the ancient world. Good harbor construction and renovation, breakwaters and moles, were coupled with all sorts of maintenance, especially in the form of dredging and flushing to prevent or at least reduce the effects of silting. In addition, city-states sought to further protect the ships coming into their ports by investing in the erection of signal beacons. In the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), for example, the island of Thasos had such fire beacons, modeled on a tradition stretching back to the Bronze Age. Certainly the most famous fire beacon of all was the prominent tower on the island of Pharos at the edge of the two harbors of Alexandria in Egypt; standing some 328 feet tall, the three-tiered tower (rectangular at base, octagonal in the middle, cylindrical at the top) was constructed under the direction of Sostratus of

Housing and Community: Infrastructure

Cnidus and served as a landmark by day (stark white in color) and a lighthouse by night (a fire in the uppermost story being amplified by use of mirrors). The tradition of investing in infrastructure thus continued throughout Greek history. By Hellenistic times, the Greeks had adopted alongside their own efforts the mentality of Persian and Egyptian leaders in this regard; this was especially true of the Seleucids in their road projects and the Ptolemies in their work to make Alexandria the greatest city in the known world. With massive revenues available in the form of taxes and fees, and the very real prospect of increasing the volume and intensity of trade, Hellenistic Greeks took advantage of opportunities in manpower, skills, and technology to develop infrastructure on a scale never before seen in the world of the ancient Greeks. See also: Economics and Work: Masonry; Trade; Travel; Housing and Community: Colonization; Country Life; Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Politics and Warfare: City-States; Public Officials; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Religion and Beliefs: Oracles; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Engineering; Geometry; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy; Navigation; Ships/Shipbuilding; Vehicles FURTHER READING Camp, J. 1986. The Athenian Agora. London: Thames & Hudson. Camp, J. 2001. The Archaeology of Athens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Casson, L. 1994. Travel in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Casson, L. 1996. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fraser, P. M. 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garland, R. 1987. The Piraeus. London: Duckworth. Goddio, F., and A. Bernand. 2004. Sunken Egypt: Alexandria. London: Periplus. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Humphrey, J. W. 2006. Ancient Technology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Humphrey, J. W., J. P. Oleson, and A. N. Sherwood, eds. 1998. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Landels, J. P. 2000. Engineering in the Ancient World. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Meijer, F., and O. Van Nijf. 1992. Trade, Transport and Society in the Ancient World: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, S. G. 1978. The Prytaneion: Its Function and Architectural Form. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Morton, J. 2001. Role of the Physical Environment in Ancient Greek Seafaring. Leiden: Brill.

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The World of Ancient Greece Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Osborne, R. 1987. Classical Landscape with Figures. London: Cambridge University Press. Piggott, S. 1983. The Earliest Wheeled Transport from the Atlantic Coast to the Caspian Sea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Pollard, J., and H. Reid. 2006. The Rise and Fall of Alexandria. London: Penguin. Pritchett, W.  K., and Miller, H. 1980. Studies in Ancient Greek Topography: Part III (Roads). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Salmon, J. B. 1984. Wealthy Corinth. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Travlos, J. 1971. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. London: Thames & Hudson. Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1974. Cities of Ancient Greece and Italy: Planning in Classical Antiquity. London: Sedgwick & Jackson. White, K. D. 1984. Greek and Roman Technology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

MARKETPLACES The marketplace, or agora, served as the heart of most ancient Greek communities. In some cases, it developed close to the seashore, fueled by access to maritime commerce; in others, it grew up near a city-state’s focal points of religion or political power. Regardless of location, marketplaces were rarely centers of business alone; instead, they were the common ground shared by all the community’s inhabitants for a multiplicity of individual and communal purposes. The main roads into a Greek city, and the main streets within it, usually found their way to the agora. As typically one of the first places laid out when a Greek community was founded, an agora tended to develop a cluttered and even haphazard look over the generations; this was especially true because tradition discouraged the abandoning of an old marketplace in favor of a brand new one (a custom so unfamiliar now in modern societies). So, communities often outgrew their original agorai, requiring them to be expanded in previously unplanned directions and wherever or however available space allowed. The agora at Athens, perhaps the best investigated of all Greek marketplaces, grew to about twenty-five acres in the northwest corner of the city. Produce and meat, cheese and wine, flowers and wreaths, garments and shoes, household furnishings and personal articles, artworks and books, animals of all sorts, could be found there, as well as tanners, cobblers, smithies, carpenters, masons, barbers, bankers, moneylenders, cooks and laborers for hire, prostitutes, and slaves. In the fifth century BCE, the Athenian agora drew products from all across the trading world of the Greeks, featuring silphium (a medicinal plant) and hides from Cyrene, mackerel from the Hellespont, pigs and cheese from Syracuse, linen and papyrus from Egypt, incense from Syria, ivory from Libya, nuts from Paphlagonia, dates from Phoenicia, slaves from Phrygia and Scythia, even carpets and cushions from Carthage.

Housing and Community: Marketplaces

View of the central marketplace, or agora, at Athens with the Acropolis looming in the background. Every ancient Greek community had at least one agora, a sort of plaza where residents and visitors would trade their wares and where citizens would engage in many of the political and civic functions of state. (Eustaquio Santimano)

Those who sold certain items, or performed particular services, tended to congregate in distinct sections of the marketplace. At Athens, for instance, barbers, fishmongers, and bankers plied their trades along the north side of the agora, olive oil dealers and those who rented out slaves for hire along the east, and booksellers in the middle. Most vendors operated out of temporary stalls or booths, or set up tables (like bankers used), or gathered around “rings” (kykloi, probably round platforms upon which meat, fish, textiles, pottery, and so on were displayed for sale) referred to by the sorts of items to be had there (like “The Fish” or “The Fresh Cheese”). There was no permanent market hall in the Athenian agora until the first century, but some tradesmen did have more-or-less permanent shops, like the craftsmen in the southwest corner of the agora and along the adjoining streets, including the Street of the Marble-Workers (where the father of Socrates would have labored as a stonemason) or the small businessmen on the north side of the agora and along its adjoining streets, including the Street of Herms, where barber shops served also as gathering places (for men from the Athenian deme/village of Deceleia, for instance). Businesses might also operate out of homes, which doubled as workshops, very close to the agora, like that of Socrates’ friend, Simon the cobbler.

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Since it had a variety of functions, one would find in any ancient Greek agora more than just a bazaar filled with craftsmen, salesmen, and shoppers. As early as the seventh century BCE in the Greek communities of Sicily and southern Italy, marketplaces possessed stone structures for public use, like the roofed colonnades known as stoas, excellent places to conduct business, while hiding from bad weather or the heat of the sun. Citizens and leaders of a Greek community handled the most significant political affairs in the designated locations within and nearby their agora. At Athens, for instance, the agora was bounded on the south by the Areios pagos, or Hill of Ares, home to the council of elders (Areopagus); from the agora, citizens were literally funneled along a street to the Pnyx, a natural auditorium where the assembly of voters (Ekkle¯sia) met. Within the agora, government structures included the Bouleuterion, the Prytaneum or Tholos, and various courthouses. Greek communities often chose to decorate their marketplace with the best artworks they could gather. Many displayed paintings in the buildings of the agora, as in the so-called Painted Stoa (Stoa Poikile) at Athens, on the wall of which were depictions of the fall of Troy and the victory at Marathon. Such artistic displays not only heralded the genius of particular artists but also were meant to instill patriotic fervor in the citizens who would have seen them every day as they conducted various activities nearby. An agora was also a religious center. In their agora, the Athenians staged their earliest performances and spectacles in honor of the gods, such as choruses and plays for Dionysus (in the middle of the agora, which Athenians referred to as the “orchestra”) or the torch races, games, and grand Panathenaic procession (along the dromos, or “racetrack,” running down the center of the agora) for Athena. Images of and shrines to the gods abounded among the marketplaces of the Greek world: statues of Demeter and Poseidon in the agora of Smyrna, a shrine of Mercury and Maia at Delos, a Temple of Apollo Patroos and Altar to the Twelve Gods at Athens, and so on. In relation to this, in the middle of the fourth century BCE, the Athenians commissioned one of their star sculptors, Leochares, to create a bronze statue of Apollo to adorn their agora; we know the work today through a Roman marble copy that stands in the Vatican Museum, the so-called Apollo Belvedere, a masterpiece of male physical and psychological perfection. Marketplaces also contained structures and devices of very practical importance, like the sundial in the center of the Ephesian agora or the office of weights and measures in the forum of Pompeii or the Peirene fountain house in the agora of Corinth. The most famous example of such a practical marketplace structure, even though it was erected in Roman times, would have to be the Tower of the Winds in Athens. Its creator, the Macedonian astronomer Andronicus of Cyrrhus, designed this octagonal building in the middle of the first century BCE to serve both as a

Housing and Community: Marketplaces

huge wind vane (a bronze statue of Triton pivoted on the roof in the direction of the eight winds, indicated by reliefs on the eight sides of the tower) and as a clock (an apparatus inside the tower functioned as a water clock). Marketplaces existed in the Greek countryside as well, at crossroads or in small towns outside the major urban centers. Many such rural markets disappeared by the fourth century BCE, however. Again, Athens provides an illustration: more and more commerce, as well as other activities, came to focus on its main agora downtown and on the one in the big harbor of the Piraeus, reducing the viability of the more local markets. In Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), Greek communities that possessed the space and the funds to do so created more strictly rectilinear marketplaces; they achieved this by erecting covered colonnades around the perimeter of their agora, as did, for instance, the mercantile elite on the island of Delos. The Ephesians also had a quadrangular agora and boasted that it was the largest in the world; it was quite sizable, at about 360 feet along each of its four sides, with arcades all around. With the sea to the west, a mountain to the south, and the remains of two major highways of ancient times to north and east, the agora at Ephesus, even in ruins, still impresses visitors. The example from Ephesus reminds us that, even in more remote times, many Greek colonies founded on previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited sites, like the colonies along the coasts of Asia Minor or southern Italy and Sicily, had better choices of the ground upon which to build their marketplaces; after all, it was a citizen of Miletus in Asia Minor, the engineer-architect Hippodamus in the fifth century BCE, who seems to have popularized the layout of new cities and neighborhoods along a rectilinear grid of streets. To enforce regulations of trade and commerce, and conduct, and generally maintain the structures in an agora, many Greek communities selected agoranomoi, marketplace supervisors, with offices in the agora itself. To prevent private encroachment on the public space of the marketplace and to keep “undesirables” from entering it, governments erected horoi, boundary markers. In Athens, for instance, children were taught not to cross the horoi into the agora, and citizens convicted of certain crimes against the community (such as impiety or draft-dodging) also knew that they were prohibited from passing those boundaries. Marketplaces in the ancient Greek world thus achieved an importance only surpassed by strictly sacred spaces, like temple precincts. Originally places of public gathering, agorai came to serve the needs of their communities in so many other ways and to symbolize the very values of those communities. See also: Arts: Painting, Walls/Panels; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sophists; Economics and Work: Banking; Carpentry;

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Masonry; Merchants and Markets; Trade; Weights and Measures; Housing and Community: Infrastructure; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Athenian Constitution; Public Officials; Recreation and Social Customs: Panathenaia; Science and Technology: Education; Engineering; Time-Reckoning FURTHER READING Camp, J. 1986. The Athenian Agora. London: Thames & Hudson. Camp, J. 2001. The Archaeology of Athens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Garland, R. 1987. The Piraeus from the Fifth to the First Century B.C. London: Duckworth. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stewart, A. F. 1990. Greek Sculpture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Travlos, J. 1971. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. London: Thames & Hudson.

PALACE COMPLEXES, BRONZE AGE The British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941) uncovered the oldest “palace complexes” in the Greek world on the island of Crete, which forms the southern boundary of the Aegean Sea. Evans referred to what he had found as palaces because he believed they served the power of the mythical Greek ruler, Minos of Crete. Although modern scholars are still not entirely sure what to make of the structures discovered on Crete, evidence from similar complexes elsewhere, especially those identified by Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) on the Greek mainland, suggest that they were much more than just the residences of local kings. Excavations on Crete as well as other islands in the Aegean, such as Melos, Santorini, and Rhodes, have revealed the oldest palace complexes in the region, dating from approximately 3000–1400 BCE. They belong to the advanced culture named “Minoan” by Evans, after the famous King Minos. Those on Crete were linked together by a road system complete with way stations and watchtowers. All were constructed in similar fashion out of similar masonry, mud brick, and timber. The grandest of them, the palace complex at Knossos, covered acres of land and consisted of a thousand rooms organized around courtyards, linked across five levels by mazes of staircases and passageways. The rooms themselves seem to have served different functions, many for storage, others for living quarters or meeting halls. The inhabitants had painted the walls with bright and beautiful frescoes and lighted the rooms with skylights and glazed windows; some rooms were even serviced by indoor plumbing. Together with other artworks, pottery, and jewelry, the complex structures reveal a culture with tremendous creative skills and wealth. The

Housing and Community: Palace Complexes, Bronze Age

Partially reconstructed section of the palace complex at Knossos on Crete, c. 1400 BCE. The Minoans, who originally built this structure, and the Mycenaean Greeks who later resided there, ruled a considerable territory from this base of operations, into which was brought all the agricultural products and trade goods of the region for the purposes of cataloging, storage, and redistribution by palace bureaucrats. (Marina Scurupii/Dreamstime.com)

absence of weapons or defensive installations has suggested to some scholars that the Minoan was a peaceful civilization. We do not know who the Minoans were or whether there were any Greeks among them. We are fairly certain, though, that the earliest Greek civilization, that which we call Mycenaean, adopted the palace complexes from the Minoans. Heinrich Schliemann began the still-ongoing investigations into the Mycenaean culture with his excavations at Mycenae itself in southern Greece. There he found a complex smaller than those found later by Evans on Crete, but dating to at least 1600 BCE and fortified by surrounding double-filled walls forty feet thick and thirty feet high (penetrated by massive entrance gates, like the famous Lion’s Gate). He uncovered plenty of evidence of housing and daily life, but most spectacular were the burials. What was called Grave Circle A, for instance, contained shaft graves (dated roughly 1700–1500 BCE) marked by ste¯lai engraved with various scenes; the bodies, once removed from the shafts, soon disintegrated, but the riches in which they were buried (bronze armor, gold jewelry, and death masks) survive. Outside the complex, the massive beehive-shaped tombs covered with earth (dated roughly 1450–1300 BCE) revealed a precise skill in stonemasonry

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(some of the blocks weigh 100 tons and they are held together without any sort of mortar); most of these tombs had long before been looted when excavation began, but some still contained human remains and even richer finds than in Grave Circle A. Excavations by later archaeologists at Mycenae uncovered Grave Circle B, with four times as many shaft graves as A, and elsewhere close to 500 other Mycenaean sites across the Greek mainland. All these sites reveal Minoan influence in terms of construction and other techniques, as well as many copies of actual Minoan items, perhaps by Minoan artists and artisans. The so-called Linear B tablets found at Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns, and elsewhere, bear the oldest form of the Greek language and tell us in graphic terms what sort of society created the Mycenaean palace complexes. Each complex was owned by the local chief, or wanax, who granted land to those in his service through very detailed arrangements, especially to his companion warriors who used bronze armor and weapons, as well as warships, to maintain his power; the rest of his people were ruled tightly thanks to a complex bureaucratic hierarchy of administrators, landowners, and specialists. The entire economy of the region was managed by the wanax and his staff. Farmers and craftsmen, and prisonersof-war (that is, slaves) worked the land as tenants of the wanax, who might even employ hundreds of men and women to produce large quantities of goods (such as bronze, textiles, olive oil, gold and ceramic luxuries, etc.). Since most Linear B records focus on local matters, we have little evidence for the relations among the Mycenaean palace complexes. The Mycenaean Greeks certainly borrowed key skills, especially in art and architecture, from the Minoans, and probably also in writing and administration. Although written evidence from the Minoans (so-called Linear A) has yet to be deciphered, the striking similarities between their palace complexes and those of the Mycenaeans suggest that the former also served as centers for the collection, storage, and redistribution of local agricultural produce; the Mycenaean palace complexes certainly did this, and they were also centers for the transformation of imported raw materials (such as copper from Attica, ivory from Syria, lumber from Phoenicia, papyrus from Egypt, and so on) into finished products for local use and luxury items for long-distance resale throughout the Aegean and across the eastern Mediterranean. Skilled artisans and artists, and hardworking farmers, brought great prosperity to these palace complexes, supporting populations in the tens of thousands. Mycenaean warlords and their warriors likely seized the Minoan sites, most of which were destroyed by violence around 1400 BCE; the only one to survive, Knossos, certainly belonged to the Mycenaeans afterward. They had replaced the Minoans by that point across the region’s maritime trade network, the Mycenaean

Housing and Community: Plague/Epidemic Disease

leaders themselves acting as the trading agents; indeed, they expanded that network to stretch across the Mediterranean from Egypt as far as Spain. In the fourteenth century BCE, though, the palace complexes entered a long period of economic decline, caused by a falloff in trade and perhaps increased competition over markets; violence among the warriors of the complexes apparently escalated as well, perhaps a result of piratical activities against one another. The Mycenaean Greeks began to abandon their palace complexes in the following centuries, especially after 1200 BCE. By the year 1000 BCE, only perhaps onetenth of the sites known to us were still inhabited at all and then on a much poorer and seriously depopulated scale. The Bronze Age civilizations of the Greek world had given way to the Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE) in which only little villages remained to preserve any memory of where the once-great palace complexes had flourished. See also: Arts: Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Economics and Work: Land Ownership; Piracy and Banditry; Trade; Fashion and Appearance: Cosmetics; Hairstyles; Jewelry; Housing and Community: Fortifications; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Monarchies FURTHER READING Castleden, R. 2005. The Mycenaeans. London and New York: Routledge. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mylonas, G. E. 1966. Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

PLAGUE/EPIDEMIC DISEASE While epidemic disease (nose¯ma, nosos) abounded in the world of the ancient Greeks, outbreaks of disease constituting a plague (loimos) tended to be rare and isolated. The most well-known epidemic suffered by the ancient Greeks occurred during the early years of the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans and their allies had been making frequent, devastating raids of the Athenian countryside, which drove the majority of the rural population into the downtown heart of the city for refuge. Athens could not handle this; it became seriously overcrowded; sanitation and other basic necessities were woefully insufficient; malnutrition and polluted water supply ensued. All these conditions made the city prone to a plague. According to the Athenian historian Thucydides, who lived through the plague years and

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contracted the disease himself, it originated in North Africa and the Near East and had spread on board trading ships. Utilizing the detailed descriptions provided by Thucydides and paleopathological studies, modern scholars have postulated some thirty different diseases as the possible culprit in this case, including bubonic plague, typhus, and smallpox, though even a now-extinct microbe might have been to blame. Typhus and smallpox seem to be the best candidates. The worst outbreaks of the Athenian plague took place in the years 430 and 427 BCE; an outbreak in 429 killed Pericles, the leader of Athens at the time. Scholars estimate that one-quarter to one-third of the Athenian population died from this epidemic. Thucydides noted how contagious the disease was, even affecting animals, like the dogs and carrion birds that perished in 430 BCE. Interestingly, the plague never affected any of the populations in the Peloponnese, as far as we know. Perhaps it required the incredibly close quarters of wartime Athens to spread. Philosophers in the tradition of Democritus came closest to understanding the origin of epidemics when they speculated on the cause as “seeds of disease.” Even they could not have conceived of the existence of the microscopic organisms responsible. Without such knowledge, Greek authors and medical experts tried to explain epidemics through the theories typical of their medicine (like the humoral theory of imbalance among the body’s fluids); of course, this did not prove satisfactory. Ancient Greek medical writers turned to keeping track of weather conditions when recording the onset of epidemics, since they suspected correlations between climate and outbreaks. An epidemic of mumps on the island of Thasos, for instance (characterized by flabby swellings around the ears, painful inflammations in the groin, dry cough, and hoarseness), had been preceded by an inclement springtime. Attention was also paid, as in this same instance, to where the disease was most prevalent, specifically among those young men and boys who frequented the gymnasia on the island. The Greeks understood that lifestyle and environmental circumstances, as well as diet, might have been a factor in the spread of contagious disease. In addition to mumps, textual and paleopathological evidence from ancient times indicate that the Greeks experienced such infectious diseases as chickenpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, and trachoma. There is no evidence for measles, cholera, or rubella, though Hippocratic texts seem to have described symptoms of influenza. Leprosy (kelephia) entered the Greek world from the Near East, but not until Hellenistic times, and did not spread too widely. Literary sources most often describe tuberculosis and malaria. The latter affected children and adults in summer and autumn; Athenian military forces likely suffered from falciparum malaria during the Sicilian Expedition in the later fifth

Housing and Community: Plague/Epidemic Disease

century BCE. Other types of malaria were vivax and quartan, the latter affecting both people and cattle. Quartan malaria appears to have occurred most commonly in urban centers and often proved fatal to those who contracted it. Of course, many Greeks blamed the gods for epidemics. Apollo famously brought down plague upon the Achaeans during the Trojan War in punishment for their desecration of his temple and humiliation of his priest; perhaps even more famously, the hero Oedipus earned plague as punishment for his city of Thebes because of the crimes he had committed (unknowingly) against his father and mother. In such cases, epidemics resulted from ritual or societal pollution (miasma) and required spiritual cleansing (with fires, torches, incense, and so on). The ancient Greek medical tradition did not hold out much hope of curing epidemic diseases. Hippocratic doctors apparently believed that if a contagious disease could not be cured by medicine, surgery, or fire, then it could not be cured at all. See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry; Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Family and Gender: Death and Dying; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Housing and Community: Country Life; Health and Illness; Infrastructure; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Magic; Olympian Gods; Oracles; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Medicine; Zoology; Primary Documents: “Hippocrates” on Diagnosis and Observation of Illnesses (Late Fifth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Aufderheide, A.  C., and C. Rodríguez-Martín. 1998. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Garland, R. 1990. The Greek Way of Life: From Conception to Old Age. London: Duckworth. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Ancient Athens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Grmek, M. 1989. Diseases in the Ancient Greek World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Jenkins, I., and V. Turner. 2009. The Greek Body. London: British Museum Press. Kiple, K. F., ed. 1993. The Cambridge World History of Human Disease. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Roberts, C., and K. Manchester. 2007. The Archaeology of Disease. 3rd ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sallares, J. R. 1991. The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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PUBLIC BUILDINGS Besides the temples erected in honor of their gods, which, once consecrated, were believed, in fact, to belong to their gods, and the theaters and stadiums for the enrichment and entertainment of gods and mortals alike, Greek communities also built a number of other characteristic structures at public expense and for the public’s use and benefit. Such buildings served primarily the needs of government and administration and typically stood in the agora, the downtown heart or central marketplace, of the community. One of the most common of these public buildings was the bouleuterion, or council house, seat of the governing council, or boule¯, of the community. Since the vast majority of Greek states were aristocratic in nature, meaning that members of the upper classes made the day-to-day decisions of governance and debated policy, where these leading citizens met in council was a very significant place in the urban landscape. Most bouleuteria seem to have been similar to the well-known example from the western side of the Athenian agora, that is, they were rectangular halls of stone with colonnaded façades and pitched roofs of terracotta tiles. Inside the Bouleuterion of Athens, a semicircular seating area of stone benches accommodated the meetings of the Council of 500. The Athenians, in fact, erected two council houses, replacing the functions of the old, more complex building out front by the just-described new building behind it. They converted the old council house into the Metroon, in honor of the mothergoddess Cybele from Asia Minor. Yet the building did not entirely lose its secular purpose, as it became the primary repository for the city’s records. In other Greek communities, religious structures often served similarly. Many communities also resembled Athens in having one or more tholoi, round stone buildings roofed with terracotta tiles pitched like the top of a tent; some were beautifully decorated, like those at Delphi or Epidauros, others were rather simple, like the Athenian example. Most seem to have served as sacred spaces, but the one at Athens had a very secular purpose. Located a little bit southeast of the Bouleuterion, the tholos of Athens served as the meeting place for the Prytany, the presiding delegation of the Council of 500; the fifty members of the Prytany were expected to be on-call and in-session every day of the year (except holidays) in the tholos; hence, it acquired the name Prytaneum. Not only did the members of the Prytany work there, however; they also slept there and ate meals together there. Not all scholars agree, but the tholos in the Athenian agora may have been identical with its prytaneion, a term used by Greek communities to describe their “main hall.” Inside such a structure burned the hearth fire, or hestia, literally the fireplace of the entire community. Since the goddess Hestia was embodied in this fire, the prytaneion was a public religious building, rather than a conference center

Housing and Community: Public Buildings

for government officials, and the scene of sacred oaths, processions, and other ceremonial events of communal impact. A community’s prytaneion functioned as a public dining hall where government leaders might host foreign dignitaries and victorious generals. Moreover, one of the rewards for triumphant athletes returning from the Olympic Games or other Panhellenic competitions was to be fed for life in the prytaneion of their community. In city-states where trials by popular jury took place, public buildings included courthouses (dikaste¯ria), often spacious and rectangular halls, sometimes approached by colonnades. Such were the Athenian law courts, located in different parts of the agora, with a significant grouping of several buildings in the northeastern section of the city-center. Of all the public structures of a Greek city, the stoa was certainly the most common. It was a covered colonnade, with a row of columns on one long side of the building and a wall on the opposite long side; in some cases, rows of columns extended along both sides, with additional columns down the middle length of the structure. Stoas were excellent places to conduct business, hold legal proceedings, dine together in a public banquet, observe a religious procession, socialize with friends, converse with associates, debate philosophy, or simply hide from bad weather; when rooms were added to the back wall of a stoa, they could serve other functions, for instance as public offices or private shops. Over the course of time, the Athenians alone erected at least eight separate stoas along three sides of their agora. The Stoa of the Herms, haunt of young cavalry troopers, was perhaps identical with the Royal Stoa, where the Basileus archoˉn had his offices and where the Areopagus Council sometimes met; after the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian assembly set up its laws there, inscribed in stone. Other well-attested stoas in Athens were the Stoa of Zeus and the Painted Stoa (Stoa Poikile), both adorned with paintings of gods, heroes, and battles composed by some of the foremost artists of the day; the Painted Stoa also served as a site for arbitrations and jury trials. Greek states concentrated their public building, and hence much of their architectural and artistic skill, in their urban centers, even though the vast majority of their populations typically lived in the countryside. They built for permanence and monumentality, as well as practicality; they created harmonious structures, even if not always harmoniously arranged, since most cities erected their public buildings without much urban planning. Over the centuries, public buildings in the Greek world were constructed on a grander scale in terms of size, but their essential forms remained unaltered. See also: Arts: Painting, Walls/Panels; Philosophy, Stoics; Temple Architecture; Food and Drink: Meals; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Urban Life;

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Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Assemblies; Athenian Constitution; Citizenship; City-States; Councils; Democracies; Diplomacy; Justice and Punishment; Public Officials; Recreation and Social Customs: Stadiums and Hippodromes; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Olympian Gods; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Engineering FURTHER READING Camp, J. 1986. The Athenian Agora. London: Thames & Hudson. Camp, J. 2001. The Archaeology of Athens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, S. G. 1978. The Prytaneion: Its Function and Architectural Form. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Travlos, J. 1971. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. London: Thames & Hudson. Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1974. Cities of Ancient Greece and Italy: Planning in Classical Antiquity. London: Sedgwick & Jackson.

RESIDENT ALIENS, IMMIGRANTS, AND FOREIGNERS The world of the ancient Greeks was very familiar with the concepts of foreign visitors and resident aliens. They often played an essential role in communities not originally their homes, even though they were not always respected for doing so. Foreign visitors (xenoi) to a Greek city-state, especially those planning on an extended visit there (which would mean not more than a month’s time), were required to register with their proxenos, a local citizen who had close ties (through trade, diplomatic, or family relations) with the visitors’ home country. The proxenos acted as a sort of cultural liaison and also assumed a certain amount of legal responsibility for the foreign guests under his care. Xenoi might have to pay taxes, fines, or fees in the city they were visiting, but they had no rights there, unless specially granted by that city. Yet cities enjoying prosperity and heavily involved in international commerce, like Syracuse in Sicily, or Corinth and Athens in mainland Greece, or Miletus and Ephesus in western Turkey, thereby attracted many skilled xenoi in a variety of fields. Therefore, many proxenoi were needed to represent the interests of those foreign visitors. As for foreigners who wished to relocate to a Greek city-state on a more permanent basis, some communities, like Sparta, refused to permit aliens to reside there at all, while other places, like Corinth, Samos, or Syracuse, had more relaxed standards and, indeed, encouraged such relocation. The most information about these resident aliens, called metoikoi (metics in English, “relocated dwellers” or “those who had changed residence”), comes from ancient Athens. There were perhaps

Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners

as many as thirty thousand of them in that city-state during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE as indicated by various pieces of evidence, including a census from late in the fourth century that recorded 10,000 metic “heads of household,” as compared to 21,000 citizen “heads of household. Most resident aliens in Athens were from other Greek communities, but there were also Syrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Scythians from much farther afield. A foreigner could not simply show up in Athens and claim to be a resident alien. He or she had to have the sponsorship of an Athenian citizen (a prostate¯s, who had the responsibility of perpetual supervision of that metic) and was required to register with Athenian authorities at the sponsor’s deme (voting district) headquarters. If not done, an unregistered foreigner was subject to enslavement; once done, he or she fell under the ultimate jurisdiction of the polemarch, the magistrate in charge of military and foreign affairs. Once officially registered, metics held a special status in Athens, privileged in comparison to any other foreign visitors to the city. Athenian law promised them certain protections, such as the right to defend themselves in court and to prosecute those who had harmed them. They also had the right to trade anywhere within Athenian territory; they could lease mines and hire slaves, just like a citizen; they even had permission to form their own religious associations. Essentially, resident aliens benefited from Athenian prejudices against the pursuit of particular professions; where Athenians themselves were reluctant to take on certain jobs, and these jobs were necessary for Athenian success and prosperity, metics would pick up the slack. Most famously, for example, they engaged in banking, something which many Athenians regarded as a low-class, disreputable profession. Yet, in other cases, it may simply have been a matter of metics having the better skills, as suggested by the three-to-one proportion of metics to citizen artisans in the construction of the Erechtheum shrine on the Acropolis. Metics participated greatly in the civic and social life of Athens. Just like wealthy citizens, they could hold liturgies from the state, paying for major public projects out of their personal fortunes. They socialized with prominent citizens, developing relationships and contacts much closer even than those between such citizens and the lower classes of Athens. Perhaps most significantly, metics played a prominent role in the religious festivals of the city-state, especially the Panathenaic festival. In fact, they were required to do so. Athens required other things of metics as well. They had to pay a high annual poll tax (twelve drachmae for male metics, six drachmae for single female metics) and the emergency war tax (eisphora). Metics also had to serve in the Athenian military, sometimes as rowers or sailors in the navy, but even as soldiers in the infantry. Unlike elsewhere in the Greek world, Athenian metics provided disproportionately

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large numbers of hoplites to their adopted home, at least 3,000, for instance, during the Peloponnesian War alone. Indeed, they were forbidden from leaving the citystate during wartime, a restriction not imposed on citizens themselves. The one branch of military service barred to metics was the cavalry, the special purview of the Athenian elite, an indicator of true status. Moreover, they could not own land or a house in Athens nor could they vote or serve in the Athenian political system or on Athenian juries, all essential indicators of true citizenship. In other words, despite having the duties of citizens and many of the civil rights, resident aliens in Athens were still kept in their place, reminded that they served the democracy but did not belong to it. In fact, they still, technically, belonged to their home place and could return there just about whenever they wished without much interference from the Athenian state. A fearful attitude that strangers were wont to cause trouble seems to have prevailed in many Greek poleis, but nowhere more than at Sparta. The Spartans only allowed foreign visitors under strict supervision and then only for very short periods of time. They did not permit outsiders to live in their city-state, so the very concept of a resident alien would have been literally foreign to them. When Spartan armies conquered the neighboring communities of Cythera, Cynouria, Pharis, and Geronthrai (in the eighth century BCE), however, they began to rely on the inhabitants of those communities to produce many essential products and to perform many essential services for Sparta, thus creating a parallel in certain ways to the resident aliens common to other locales. The people of those communities, whom the Spartans called perioikoi (dwellers around the edge), lost much of their land to Spartan confiscation for Spartan settlement, but they were still allowed local self-government, within limits dictated by Sparta. They were essentially subjects of Sparta, required to fulfill duties to Sparta (such as compulsory military service). Many perioikoi were skilled craftsmen, merchants, and so forth; without them, the Spartans, who did no manual labor, would have lacked weapons, armor, tools, pottery, furniture, and many other necessities. Thus, just as resident aliens filled in gaps within the economies of other Greek societies, the perioikoi did even more so in Spartan society. Foreign visitors, resident aliens, or subject peoples within the framework of a larger city-state—these noncitizens living among citizens fulfilled very important functions. Regardless of the different terms by which they were called by different Greek communities, they constituted a widespread and familiar phenomenon, one which communities paid a great deal of attention to in social, economic, legal, and political terms because of the critical importance of distinguishing between citizens and noncitizens in the world of the ancient Greeks. See also: Economics and Work: Banking; Carpentry; Landownership; Masonry; Merchants and Markets; Mining; Taxation; Trade; Housing and Community:

Housing and Community: Urban Life

Marketplaces; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Cavalry; Citizenship; Hoplite Soldiers; Justice and Punishment; Navies; Recreation and Social Customs: Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Panathenaia; Prostitutes and Courtesans FURTHER READING Boegehold, A. L., and A. C. Scafuro, eds. 1994. Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cartledge, P. 1979. Sparta and Lakonia. London and New York: Routledge. Christ, M. 2006. The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press. De St. Croix, G. E. M. 1981. The Class Struggle in Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Herman, G. 1987. Ritualized Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, L. G. 1997. Greeks Bearing Gifts: The Public Use of Private Relationships in the Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sinclair, R. K. 1988. Democracy and Participation in Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitehead, D. 1977. The Ideology of the Athenian Metic. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society.

URBAN LIFE To separate urban life from rural life when discussing the world of the ancient Greeks is to make a somewhat artificial, modern distinction. Even in ancient Athens, an unusually large city-state (both in terms of territory and population), only about one-third of those living there resided and worked in the urban, downtown core; the vast majority inhabited village districts scattered throughout Attica. Other Greek communities likely had a similar proportion of urban-to-rural residents and perhaps even a smaller percentage of the former. Still, even though the rural population always considerably outnumbered the urban in the Greek world, the urban lifestyle deserves particular consideration for its contribution of key features to ancient Greek society. The layout and scale of Greek urban centers varied dramatically. Sparta, for example, consisted actually of a collection of five separate villages (Pitana, Mesoa, Limnae, Cynosura, and Amyclae) linked together only by the fact that they shared a common marketplace, or agora, and common religious sanctuaries. Thus, it lacked the typical architecture of most city-states, especially lagging behind the faster-growing and more culturally advanced urban centers at Argos and Corinth. At the other end of the spectrum, Athens consisted not just of a highly developed urban core, with dozens of significant structures for a variety of uses, but also

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of all the villages of the peninsula of Attica; Athens thus constituted a huge (by Greek standards) urbanized, semi-urbanized, and un-urbanized environment close to one thousand square miles in area. The largely rural territory of Attica certainly dwarfed the downtown city-space (astu), as was the case of the territory of Laconia in relation to “downtown” Sparta, and most ancient Greek states would have consisted of more rural space than urban space (though probably not in such high proportion of rural to urban as at Athens or Sparta). Many urban centers, especially those in mainland Greece and on the Aegean Islands, occupied uneven terrain (often since long before recorded history) and so did not enjoy careful street planning along grid patterns; entering them, one would have found an unusual maze of streets. Relatively new Greek colonial settlements abroad usually did have a grid of intersecting streets and so would have been more easily navigable by visitors. The Athenians likely had this advantage in mind when they commissioned the urban planner Hippodamus of Miletus to redesign the principal harbor district of Athens at Piraeus in the second half of the fifth century BCE, as did the Rhodians with the design of their new urban capital. Regardless of its regularity in street structure, monumentalizing a city’s center with temples, public buildings, and entertainment venues became a mark of Greek high culture. Already seen in some locales as far back as the Archaic Period, Late Classical and Hellenistic times witnessed an explosion in that sort of urban development. The same was true of the proliferation of monuments (like the choragic stone markers or bronze tripods honoring dithyrambic and theatrical successes at Athens), commemorative statues of heroes or gods, and other works of public art. Most ancient gymnasia, venues for athletic training and education in the Greek world, were also built by Greek donors or communities in the downtown heart of their cities. Many urban centers offered public entertainment to be enjoyed by their own residents and by fellow citizens coming in from the countryside, as well as by foreign visitors. At Athens, for instance, theatrical and choral performances attracted crowds of thousands from all over Attica and even from abroad; the performances were not staged on just any average day, in the way movies are shown in modern times, but rather as part of religious festivals, especially the City Dionysia, during which all the Athenians would have taken time off. The venues for such entertainment might have been urban, but the urban populace did not have exclusive or even really preferential access to them. In the same fashion, when wealthy citizens donated their resources to large segments of the population by hosting such things as tribal banquets or victory celebrations, these events may have taken place in the urban center but they involved individuals from across the Athenian territory. Urban centers were also the focal point in Greek communities for private associations, even if their members came from the countryside as well. These included

Housing and Community: Urban Life

political clubs (hetaireiai), groups of religious devotees (thiasoi), and especially phratries (  phratriai). Phratries existed in several Ionian city-states (including Athens), as well as at Sparta, Argos, Syracuse, and even Alexandria. The concept behind them stretched back at least as far as the fictive warrior brotherhoods in Homeric times. Some phratries had close ties to particular places, suggesting that they originated perhaps as the local followers of a locally powerful family in the distant past. Membership in a phratry was inherited and passed down through the male line; in Athens, for instance, a father introduced his sons to his phratry to be accepted as new members. In Athens alone, there was something close to thirty phratries (nine of them known by name); scholars estimate that the typical phratry had, on average, several hundred members at any one time. Phratries engaged primarily in social and legal functions. Members participated in various rites of passage, such as one another’s weddings, validating the oaths of husbands to their wives, and in the weddings of members’ children. Indeed, an Athenian father’s children received recognition as his legitimate offspring and true citizens from his phrateres, while an Athenian mother’s male kin brought in their phrateres to verify her citizenship and thus the citizenship of her children (if there were some question about her husband, especially if he was deceased). Phratries held regular sacrifices and group dinners in honor of Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria, especially when they conducted ceremonies of admission for members’ children. Phrateres vouched for one another and brought legal actions on behalf of one another in many sorts of court cases, especially having to do with paternity, adoption, inheritance, and other familial disputes. In fact, a panel of ten phrateres was empowered to settle with the killer of one of their own! They also owned property together from which they could make loans to or stand surety for fellow members. Some decrees of phratry meetings and lists of their members survive from ancient times. All members voted at such gatherings, apparently by secret ballot, and they selected annual officials (like the phratriarch) from among themselves, who oversaw association events under strict group accountability. Many communities of the Greek world grew out of the amalgamation of smaller locales into larger states. This appears to have happened, for instance, at Chalcis, Cos, Elis, Eretria, Rhodes, and especially Athens. The new city-states continued to use such locales, known as demes (de¯moi), as formal divisions of their territory, and some even added more of them, artificially contrived. The Athenians did this the most, dividing the entire peninsula of Attica into 139 demes, traditional and new, and at least a dozen Greek communities followed the Athenian example later on. Demes in the Athenian city center included Colonus, Collytus, and Scanbonidas, which constituted large neighborhoods there. Other “city” demes

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administratively attached to the astu fanned out westward toward the Piraeus harbor, close to fifty of them. The deme of Piraeus was practically its own little city, a fortified harbor town attached by the Long Walls to downtown Athens, but otherwise possessing its own theater, marketplaces, and temples. A bustling focal point of international trade, life in Piraeus would have had a very cosmopolitan flavor, with its many resident aliens and foreign visitors (especially merchants) and even religious cults and festivals imported from Egypt (to Isis and Men), Anatolia (to Cybele), and Thrace (to Bendis). Each deme typically had its own marketplace and some sort of public structure (a stoa, council house, or theater) for formal meetings. There, the urban demesman would have attended the local assembly of citizen voters to which he belonged and which collected local revenues for investment in local projects, maintained local religious cults and festivals, honored benefactors and local celebrities (like Olympic victors), and so on; he would have also participated in the election of the deme’s “mayor” (de¯marchos) and other officials. There, he would have taken fellow demesmen to court (in private lawsuits or civil cases concerning sums of ten drachmae or less) before deme circuit judges or deme arbitrators. City demes also sent representatives, from one to ten of them proportionally according to population, to the Council of 500, the government body that made most of the important decisions for the city-state of Athens as a whole. Athenian men and women often saw themselves first and foremost as deme citizens. They identified themselves by the demotic of their father, that is, the name of his deme. Even though some moved around for particular opportunities, most Athenians appear to have remained residents of their deme for generations; they hated to abandon their deme even in cases of urgency. This was why men and women were familiar enough with their deme neighbors to be able to select them for certain reputable duties to the community, as when fellow demeswomen chose one another for the annual celebration of the Thesmophoria festival. Despite all the interconnections among urban dwellers through family, neighborhood, deme, phratry, and so on, the ancient Greeks yet recognized in their literature and dramatic arts that urban centers experienced more crime, unlawful acts against persons, property, or the community, than rural areas did. This included thieves, housebreakers, kidnappers, purse snatchers, and so on. Yet Greek cities kept no regular police forces for maintaining law and order there. Various officials did regulate behavior within the city center, as at Athens with its astynomoi (in charge of keeping the urban environment orderly and clean), sitophylakes (in charge of maintaining the grain supply and preventing price gouging in that regard), agoroanomoi (in charge of preventing fraud or other criminal practices in the marketplace), and so on. Athens was unusual in hiring a force of foreigners of low status, archers from faraway Scythia, to keep order in the assembly,

Housing and Community: Urban Life

the Council of 500, and the law courts, all key features of the political apparatus located in the urban center of the city-state. Public magistrates, or more accurately, the public slaves who assisted them in relatively small numbers, would certainly have arrested someone caught in the act of committing a crime under their jurisdiction or in possession of goods that they should not have had. They did not, however, engage in detective work to identify criminals before they perpetrated an offence. The Athenians also had a board of officials known as the Eleven (hoi Hendeka), appointed by lot each year. They arrested thieves and muggers and could carry out summary execution of individuals caught red-handed in certain crimes or who had confessed to them. The Eleven also served as prison guards (the prison being little more than temporary holding cells) and as judges over cases in which they had brought in the accused. Most criminals (kakourgoi), even murderers, had to be formally accused by the injured party (or his/her relatives) or seized in the act/in possession through citizen’s arrest (apagoˉge¯), including mobilization of fellow citizens as a sort of posse, and brought to trial by the injured party (or his/her relatives) in the case of “private” suits (dikai), by any citizen in the case of “public” ones (graphai). Defendants commonly sought restitution through confiscation of property or wealth, imposition of fines, or public humiliation; in extreme cases, they would have called for exile or execution. Particular crimes, such as murder (especially parricide), incest involving parent and child, or acts of sacrilege, were thought to threaten society as a whole and the natural order of things and thus came under the heading of miasma, defilement or pollution. Polluted persons faced exclusion from the temenoi of their city for a prescribed number of days depending on their crime. The kin of a murder victim as well as the murderer himself/herself were said to be “blood-stained” (miaros) until the crime had been avenged. In an urban context, this usually meant taking the murderer to trial before a judge or a jury (depending on the local judicial system) and pursuing the matter until a conviction had been achieved. A killer could also purify himself/ herself from miasma by washing his/her hands in the blood of a sacrificial animal, but the community still would typically require the killer to go into exile for a set period of time before allowing his or her readmission to society (if ever). Cases of miasma also demanded that officials ritually cleanse the urban environment with fire, fumigation (especially using sulfur and laurel, or juniper, myrtle, rosemary), and water to restore communion with the gods. Many cities performed annual purification ceremonies (katharmoi) in which they paraded a male or female criminal through the streets, beating him or her along the way with green branches, and then expelled him or her as a scapegoat (  pharmakos) to expiate the misbehaviors of the entire community.

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Certainly, some of the higher incidence of crime in urban centers resulted from the greater poverty suffered there, especially in Hellenistic times when the economies of many Greek communities declined. The socioeconomic ideal of statesmen like Solon (the “staunch shield between the haves and have-nots”) and philosophers like Aristotle (who advocated enlarging the “middle” class as a buffer between the greedy rich and envious poor) had given way to a trend toward concentration of wealth in fewer hands. Rare taxation evidence from Athens in the fourth century BCE already reveals this, with some three hundred families owning most of the land in Attica. Most Greeks appear to have believed that continued poverty (  penia) was not a societal concern, though, but rather the fault of the individual, a consequence of his or her bad behavior and choices. As the Athenian general Pericles supposedly put it, poverty itself was shameful enough, but to remain poor without doing something about it was an act of criminality against oneself, one’s family, and one’s community. To confuse matters, though, Greek religion not only taught that Zeus protected homeless beggars, which seemed to put them in a coveted category among humans, but also that Nemesis, goddess of retribution, chased after the well-todo and prominent in order to cut them down to size and discourage hubris. To some, that meant poverty looked better, more virtuous somehow, than wealth. The poet Hesiod heralded poverty as the teacher of goodness, honesty, and modesty, for instance. This tradition likely inspired Socrates’ contrasting of the virtuous poor man against the wicked rich one and, probably, his own self-portrayal as an impoverished fellow, as well as the tendency among several Hellenistic philosophies, particularly Cynicism, of embracing an ascetic lifestyle in “imitation” of the “virtuous” poor. For such Greeks, the goal was not to help the poor out of their poverty, but to join them! The Greek urban context by the third century BCE, especially in larger urban centers, would have seen many of the legitimately poor and the poor by philosophical choice. Some Greeks developed a sense of pity for the urban poor out of the ancient traditions of mutual aid to one’s fellows. Long-standing social institutions like eranos clubs, which always provided financial assistance to struggling members, played a role here; over the generations, such groups began to extend aid to the rest of their community. Stoic philosophers encouraged this sense of social conscience because of their belief in common humanity. Euergetism and welfare programs aimed at the poor, to the extent that the latter existed in the Greek world, were found primarily in the urban centers. Yet epigraphic evidence from the third and second centuries BCE still suggests that many urban families were trying to limit themselves to having one child, perhaps to save him or her from a life of misery and want.

Housing and Community: Urban Life

Living in an urban context in Greek times, not surprisingly, also meant living with greater population density than in a rural context. Yet even in the largest urban centers, like Athens, Syracuse, Akragas, Tarentum, and Corinth, it would have been nothing like the population densities typical of modern times. The approximately one-third of the total population of Attica, for instance, that scholars estimate lived in the urban heart of Athens would have only amounted to something like forty thousand people in the fifth century BCE. More significantly, scholars suspect that most of this urban population would have consisted of slaves (douloi) and resident aliens (metoikoi), in other words, of non-Athenians (though it is notoriously difficult to calculate the numbers of slaves because Greek societies had no requirements to record data about them). Other Greek communities involved heavily in foreign trade would have probably seen similarly higher concentrations of noncitizens in their urban centers, making them, like the Athenian Piraeus, more cosmopolitan than the rest of their territories. Noncitizens likely benefited more from the economic opportunities presented by Greek urban life than citizens did, but the latter, in general, certainly had more to do, to look at, and to play with in the urban context than they would have had in the rural environment. Still, the urban and the rural maintained much closer ties in the world of the ancient Greeks than many modern people might at first assume. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths; Food and Drink: Drunkenness; Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Country Life; Health and Illness; Infrastructure; Plague/ Epidemic Disease; Public Buildings; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Leisure Activities; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Panathenaia; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Primary Documents: Theocritus Describes Women at a Festival (Early Third Century BCE) FURTHER READING Cartledge, P. 1993. The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Cohen, D. 1984. Theft in Athenian Law. Munich: Beck Verlag. Cohen, D. 1995. Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. Salem, NH: Ayer. Desmond, W. D. 2006. The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Dover, K. J. 1974. Greek Popular Morality. London: Basil Blackwell. Hands, A.  R. 1968. Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome. London: Thames & Hudson. Hansen, M. H. 1988. Three Studies in Athenian Demography. Copenhagen: Munkgaard. Hansen, M. H. 1998. Polis and City-State. Copenhagen: Munkgaard. Harrison, A. R. W. 1998. The Law of Athens. London: Duckworth. Hill, B. H. 1964. Corinth. Vol. 1.6. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Hill, J.  M. 1997. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hunter, V. 1994. Policing Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jones, N. F. 1987. Public Organization in Ancient Greece. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Lambert, S. D. 1993. The Phratries of Attica. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lintott, A. W. 1982. Violence, Civil Strife and Revolution in the Classical City. London and New York: Routledge. Mitchell, L.  G., and P.  J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Murray, O., and S. Price, eds. 1990. The Greek City: From Homer to Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Osborne, R. 1985. Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Strauss, B. 1993. Fathers and Sons in Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Traill, J. 1986. Demos and Trittys. Johannesburg: Victoria College Press. Veyne, P. 1987. A History of Private Life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Whitehead, D. 1986. The Demes of Attica, 508/7–ca. 250 BC: A Political and Social Study. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wycherley, R. E. 1962. How the Greeks Built Cities. London: Macmillan.

WATER SUPPLY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING The ancient Greeks made sure to locate their communities near sources of fresh water, whether rivers, lakes, or underground springs. When these resources became insufficient in supplying the community, the Greeks turned to the sinking of wells and the construction of cisterns and canals to boost their water supply. The storage

Housing and Community: Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering

of fresh water rested primarily with families, but officials took up the task of longdistance transport of water for communal use. Several Greek communities had rivers (  potamoi) running through their territory from which they would have drawn much of their water supply. The Eridanus River ran right through the downtown heart of ancient Athens, for example, the Ilissus River flowed just to the south, and both joined up with the Cephisus River a little farther to the west to empty into the Bay of Phaleron. The Eurotas River dominated the plain of ancient Sparta, providing the Spartans with plentiful fresh water, as did the Alpheus River at the great Panhellenic site of Olympia. Similarly, Greek communities clustered around lakes (limnai), like Lake Trichonis in Aetolia or especially Lake Copais in Boeotia. Even more than rivers or lakes, the Greeks certainly preferred springs and wells (kre¯nai) as the sources of their drinking water. The presence of spring water was often the reason for founding a city in a particular location. Argos in the Peloponnese, for example, had abundant natural springs. The Corinthians founded their colony of Syracuse on the small island of Ortygia (off the southeast coast of Sicily) because of its natural springs and freshwater grottoes of karst (porous limestone); indeed, Greek settlements frequently tapped the dolomitic terrain of the Mediterranean world, with all of its channels of water and opportunities for easy drainage. Not far from Syracuse, the city-state of Morgantina possessed five springs; the ancient residents there supplied the needs of multiple pottery districts and kilns with the water from these springs, as well as through careful use of wells, cisterns, and drainage structures. Akragas, further to the west along the southern Sicilian coast, had perhaps fourteen or more springs. Assyrian and other methods of tunneling underground shafts and galleries for the movement of water came to the Greeks from the Ancient Near East by at least the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), if not earlier. Public water projects utilizing such techniques are evident at seventh-century BCE Megara, Corinth, Athens, and Samos. On Samos in the late sixth century BCE, Eupalinus of Megara famously supervised the excavation of a tunnel to collect and channel spring water underground for almost a mile. The people of Pergamum in western Anatolia developed a complicated, indeed quite sophisticated, system of at least four pipeline aqueducts (ochetoi, poroi, auloˉnes) from springs in the nearby mountains, including one some fifteen miles distant. Learning from the experiments in inverted-siphon techniques employed at Olynthus as early as the sixth century BCE, the Pergamenes built thick-walled, iron and lead pipelines supported within trenches of stone slabs to transport spring water from a collection basin almost 1,300 feet above sea level down into a valley less than 600 feet above sea level; the resulting downward pressure on that stretch of the

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pipeline then pushed the water up the final stretch of the pipeline to the acropolis of the city at over 1,000 feet above sea level! The remains of the channel running north of the city still shows where the lock-stones would have been placed to seal the pipeline in order to build up even more pressure for the water’s ascent up to the citadel! The Athenians found it relatively simple to pipe water in from the Ilissus springs on Mt. Hymettus east of their city and harnessed springs in the hills to the north by means of underground channels and conduits, as did the communities of Demetrias and Pharsalus in northern Greece. The Athenian agora in the fourth century BCE saw the construction of a completely self-contained underground aqueduct in slabs of limestone, designed to protect as many as four ceramic pipelines inside it; the lettered, prefabricated sections of the pipes conformed in size, each being two feet long and having fitted male and female ends. Such water mains were sunk anywhere from six to thirty-five feet deep and were monitored by means of ancient “manholes”! The Greeks sometimes built small structures at the mouth of springs to enhance their usefulness as well as their aesthetic beauty. For instance, at Delphi, the sacred Castalia spring was provided with a marble façade, a smaller inner basin for collection of the water and a larger outer basin; the latter was utilized for ritual cleansing and bathing. The Callirrhoe spring of Athens gushed out through spouts shaped like lions heads, perhaps within an arcaded portico containing paved basins for collection of the running water. The Greeks liked to deliver water from natural springs to public fountains (  pidakes, krounoi) for use in civic spaces; fountainheads actually allowed the cascading water to aerate and to be further purified. Most famous perhaps are the examples from Athens and Corinth. The Athenian agora possessed fountain houses at its southeast and southwest corners, the former called Enneakrounos (Nine Spouts), which received water from Callirrhoe. Fifty-nine feet across, the fountain house sported a tiled roof supported by Doric columns in the front and had a solid wall in the back, like a stoa; the walls on the two short ends of the building were penetrated by ornate spouts and flanked by stone water tanks (each measuring twenty feet by ten feet). At Corinth, the spring of Glauke emptied into the Peirene fountain, a courtyard with six openings on the south into which one descended via staircases to gather the water from a collection tank; in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), Herodes Atticus, a famous Athenian scholar, renovated the Peirene (which continued to serve local residents through the nineteenth century!). The fifth-century BCE fountain house at Megara consisted of a large, open-air reservoir shaded under a forest of columns, in front of which stood the draw basin for public use (as in washing clothes, for instance); the two sections of the reservoir ingeniously allowed one to be cleaned while the other remained in operation. Miletus

Housing and Community: Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering

in western Anatolia boasted many water-supply features in its urban landscape, most drawing from springs in the nearby hills. Wells sunk downward to tap underground water went back to prehistoric Greece and were never abandoned as both a private and a public method of supplying water. The Greeks dug circular or square shafts, usually three or four feet in diameter (just wide enough for one person to move down); beginning in the fifth century BCE, wells were lined with masonry, mud brick, or tiles of terracotta, and even equipped with handles. The typical well of that and later eras reached forty feet deep and was capped with a ceramic, or more rarely stone, puteal (krounos); some were even covered with a rooflike structure. The Hellenistic houses on the island of Delos had wells in their courtyards. The Athenian agora of Classical times (490–323 BCE) had over four hundred water wells, the product of the labor of a guild of well diggers using hand tools and windlasses to remove the dirt. Such crowding of wells encouraged Greek communities to enact regulations to prevent the digging of too many in any given area. Even the great city of Alexandria in Egypt depended first and foremost for its fresh water on the aquifer located sixty feet underground, which the population tapped through numerous wells. The ancient Greeks would have looked to the sky-god Zeus to provide a portion of their water supply in the form of rain. To collect this rainwater, they constructed underground cisterns. Cisterns (lakkoi, hydrothe¯kai, dexamenai) featured as a critical part of the infrastructure in a number of Greek communities, especially those which did not have very large supplies of fresh water from rivers, lakes, or springs. Not surprisingly, then, extant remains of cisterns have been found most commonly in central and southern Greece and on the Greek islands, some dating back to Bronze Age times. In the Classical Period, cisterns had acquired a fairly standard design. They were covered underground tanks in what moderns would call a bottle shape, lined inside with waterproof lime plaster, clay, or even bitumen (from the pitch lakes on the island of Zacynthos). Examples from archaeological investigation extend anywhere from nine to twenty feet deep, though some have been found that exceed two hundred feet in depth. The Greeks also constructed tunnel cisterns, apparently a form conceived in the Hellenistic Era. A shaft sunk vertically into the ground connected with the cistern itself, consisting of a shaft excavated horizontally underground. Not only were cisterns a simple way of reclaiming runoff from rain, but they also kept the water stored within them relatively cool, thereby reducing the growth of harmful microbes there. Still, cistern water was not usually higher in quality than ground water; it was prone to stagnation and, unlike ground water, not naturally filtered. Some individuals and communities tried to adjust for this by drawing the

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cistern water through a settling tank before use, which removed some of its impurities. Otherwise, it was fairly common to boil or salt cistern water before consuming it or to make use of it mainly for external purposes, like bathing or washing. Greek homes commonly had cisterns. They were probably cleaned and repaired annually, in the fall when water levels would have been low and before the rains came; scholars believe that such cleaning of domestic cisterns involved cooperation among neighbors. Citadels, like Corinth’s Acrocorinth, were furnished with many cisterns, not surprisingly. So were marketplaces, like the Athenian agora. In fact, in the fourth century BCE, cisterns came to replace wells in many public contexts across the Greek territories, probably because people considered the water in cisterns better protected from contaminants than well water. Communities and kingdoms imposed regulations that required the owners of cisterns to maintain them in good order; governments consequently dispatched officials to inspect cisterns on a regular basis. By Hellenistic times, individual cisterns had come to form just one element in a greater water-collection and waterretention system created by the particular city; the Delians, for instance, relied on a small river, wells, and cisterns. The city of Alexandria relied on rainwater cisterns and external supply lines to supplement its aquifer wells. Across from Corinth, on Hera’s sacred promontory of Perachora, a complex water system brought spring and rainwater through stone conduits into a settling tank and a catchment tank, respectively; from there, the water went into a cistern for use during rituals. The Corinthians also excavated shafts 115 feet deep to draw underground water into storage tanks, and then employed machinery to lift the water out. As early as the fifth century BCE, evidence indicates the private tapping of public water-supply systems. At Priene in the following century, a ten-inch wide terracotta pipeline in a covered trench of protective marble slabs brought spring water from over a mile away into a public reservoir to then feed private houses and public fountains through a network of piping. The Pergamenes perfected this with a system of piping that stretched over a dozen miles. The ancient Greeks practiced little in the way of agricultural irrigation, aside from use of the shadoof in earlier times, supplemented later by Archimedean screws and waterwheels. They did, however, invest a great deal of effort and resources in moving water for drinking, washing, and bathing. They possessed abundant water resources, but did not take them for granted; springs, for example, may have seemed perennial, but they were not overused by the Greeks. Instead, their communities attempted to harness multiple sources of water so as not to be dependent on just one, or to exhaust any one of them. They used potable, sub-potable, and non-potable water for whatever purposes they could; less potable cistern water, for instance, made its way into a wide variety of tasks. The Greeks also paid close

Housing and Community: Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering

attention to water runoff, weather cycles, and so on. Leading citizens donated their wealth for the provision of water to the public and communities typically had officials specially designated to care for the water supply. Archaeological investigation has uncovered abundant evidence of municipal aqueducts, pressure lines, drain pipes, gutters, eaves, channels, and reservoirs at sites all over the Greek world, from Sicily to Asia Minor. Places like Morgantina, inhabited for close to 450 years, or Syracuse, still inhabited after 2,700 years, could not have existed or flourished without effective ancient water management. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Metal-Refining; Mining; PotteryMaking; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/ Baths; Hygiene; Food and Drink: Famine and Food Supply; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Colonization; Health and Illness; Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering; Geography; Geometry; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy FURTHER READING Crouch, D. P. 1993. Water Management in Ancient Greek Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, B. H. 1964. Corinth. Vol. 1.6. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Lang, M. 1968. Waterworks in the Athenian Agora. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Oleson, J. P. 1984. Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wikander, Ö., ed. 2000. Handbook of Ancient Water Technology. Leiden: Brill. Yegül, F. 1992. Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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INTRODUCTION Ancient Greek historians and philosophers tended to regard human beings as naturally prone to warlike behavior and a desire for domination. Greek history was certainly replete with instances of armed conflict, whether in the form of civil wars (which took place with great frequency in Archaic and Classical times), interHellenic wars (like that between Athens and Sparta), or wars with foreign peoples (most famously with the Persians). Most fighting in the Greek world took place among factions within communities and next between communities within the same region; even in Hellenistic times, which saw the rise of vast Greek-ruled kingdoms like that of the Seleucids in the Middle East, wars remained largely local, even when they fueled bigger conflicts. Warfare so frequent and so widespread made an impact on every aspect of economy and culture, creating a Greek society that at once heralded the glories of war and lamented its horrors. In tension, or perhaps in tandem, with the “natural” desire to dominate was the Greek commitment to maintaining communal and international stability. Toward this end, not only did diplomacy contribute but also the development of internal political systems that brought members of each community to respect its laws and, in most locales, to participate actively in the creation of those laws. The ancient Greeks established over a thousand separate communities (  poleis and ethne¯), fiercely independent and proud of their own institutions. Naturally, various forms of constitution emerged across the Greek world, forms still essential to the modern conception of politics, generating various levels of involvement in, commitment to, approval, supervision, and control of the local political apparatus. Greeks found their purpose not as free-wheeling rugged individualists but as dutiful citizens competing with one another for personal honor and the honor of their community, whether in assemblies, councils, and public offices, or on the battlefield. 517

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ALEXANDER THE GREAT, WARS OF Perhaps no other leader in ancient Greek history had as much impact on his and future times as did King Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BCE). This impact came primarily from his military exploits, and these carried him far from Macedon, indeed to the “ends of the Earth” from the Greek perspective. Alexander’s wars, unparalleled in their scale and scope, established his unique reputation, something Greeks, Romans, and others would attempt to emulate in later times. In the summer of 338 BCE, at Chaeronea in central Greece, King Philip II of Macedon challenged infantry forces from central and southern Greece that were attempting to prevent him from dominating all of Greece. On this occasion, his eighteen-year-old son Alexander (born 356 BCE), already experienced in military maneuvers against Thracians and Illyrians, led the Macedonian hetairoi, or Companions (3,000 elite cavalry troopers) in a daring move to annihilate the elite infantry of Thebes known as the Sacred Band. Together, father and son had scored a victory that guaranteed Macedonian hegemony over Greece. Philip then called upon all Greek states to send representatives to Corinth to forge not only a common peace among them but also to establish a Panhellenic military alliance that would direct all their aggressive energies against their “true” enemy, the Empire of Persia. A key moment of weakness among the Persians soon provided Philip with an opportunity to attack them: the Great King Artaxerxes IV had been assassinated (336 BCE) after just two years’ reign by his own chief minister, Bagoas, who had then propped up Artaxerxes’ cousin as Great King Darius III, who in turn eliminated Bagoas as a threat to his own throne. The Persian Empire had its problems, and Philip seized his chance to exploit them by sending an advanced force into Asia Minor to stir up the Greeks there into rebellion against Darius. Unfortunately, only a few months later (summer 336 BCE), Philip also fell victim to assassination. The “war of revenge” against the Persians was then left to his son, Alexander III, king of Macedon. The League of Corinth recognized Alexander as his father’s successor in the position of leadership and, after his military pacification of Illyrian tribes in the north and his terrible destruction of the rebellious city-state of Thebes, Alexander embarked on the campaigns in the Persian territories that would earn him fame as Megas, the Great. The year 334 BCE witnessed the Greek invasion of Asia Minor from the northwest. In May of that year, Alexander had his first military encounter with the Persians; the governors or satraps of the region had gathered their forces to block his army at the Granicus River. The details are obscured by conflicting ancient accounts, but it seems that the Persians enjoyed the advantage from their position (across the wide river and atop an embankment). Alexander, long experienced in

Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of

surprise maneuvers, arranged a diversion to keep the Persian forces occupied and then launched his main assault when they could not really counter it. Still, he almost lost his life in the Battle of the Granicus; Cleitus the Black, a commander in the Companions, saved him in a dramatic rescue. Alexander’s army now made its way pretty easily along the coast of western Asia Minor. He laid siege to the Greek cities of Miletus and Halicarnassus, where Persian forces attempted to resist his advance, and thereby began his “campaign” against the Persian fleet, which operated pretty freely in Aegean waters. Recognizing that his own fleet was no match for the Persian one, he decided to secure naval bases, like Miletus and especially Halicarnassus, to prevent the Persian ships from making use of them. This strategy led Alexander to march southward toward Egypt (the main Persian naval bases were in Phoenicia) and it was on that southward march, in southern Anatolia near the little town of Issus, that he found himself boxed in by the Great King Darius III, in command of perhaps twice as many forces as Alexander had. In the Battle of Issus (fall 333 BCE), Alexander led the Macedonian cavalry in a bold charge intended to break through to Darius himself. This took more effort and time than perhaps at first calculated, but the end result was terrible loss of life on the Persian side and very nearly the capture of Darius as his light-armed infantry

Large mosaic dated c. 150 BCE depicting the defeat of Darius III by Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus in 333 BCE. Originally decorating the dining-room floor of the House of the Faun in Pompeii (now in the Naples Archaeological Museum), this intricate tessellatedmarble mosaic likely copies a painting from closer to Alexander’s own time and captures the drama of the moment when the young Macedonian ruler crashed through the Persian forces to the shock of the retreating Persian king. (Jupiterimages)

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gave ground. Having taken to flight, Darius did not see his cavalry collapse under pressure from the Macedonians and his own infantry destroyed in the ensuing rout, or the mutual slaughter of his Greek mercenaries and Alexander’s hoplites. Not long afterward, and from a safe distance, Darius sued for peace with Alexander, promising him half the empire. Yet Alexander had in his custody the family of Darius, whom the Great King had abandoned, and soon also the royal treasury at Damascus. So, unless Darius were to recognize Alexander as overlord, the latter saw no reason to accept the overture of peace. Evidently, Darius was not ready to do so, and thus the war continued. In 332 BCE, Alexander laid siege to Tyre and Gaza, the only resistant cities along the Levantine coast of the Mediterranean; both places held out against long and extensive military operations (eight months in the case of Tyre, two in the case of Gaza). Still, both cities eventually fell and, as at Thebes, Alexander ordered mass enslavements of women and children and mass execution of men. He then entered Egypt, already in a state of rebellion against Darius, whose leaders surrendered to him and recognized him as their new Pharaoh (winter 332/331 BCE), not to mention as “son” of the Egyptian god Ammon. In the fall of 331 BCE, Alexander returned to the hunt for Darius, refusing a second offer of peace and territorial division, even against the encouragement of his senior advisors. So, Darius turned to the flat plain near Gaugamela in northern Mesopotamia (mod. Iraq) to do to Alexander what had been done to him at Issus: smash and encircle the enemy force and attempt to capture its commander. He had at his disposal good cavalry, chariots whose wheels were armed with scythes, and war elephants; indeed, he assembled a huge force by all accounts, perhaps five times the size of Alexander’s. When Alexander arrived at Gaugamela, he attempted to compensate for his numerical disadvantage by masking the strength of his flanks; he curved them away from the enemy so that their numbers would be difficult to gauge and, in fact, appear fewer than they were. Darius took the bait; on October 1, he sent his troops in against both Macedonian flanks, especially the right, where Alexander had stationed himself. Unfortunately for Darius, Alexander once again successfully led his Companions in a charge toward the Great King, who had allowed his center ranks to thin as they joined in the fight against the enemy flanks. Darius balked and fled, as before. Meanwhile, the Persian cavalry made a strong effort against the enemy left wing, but were eventually defeated in that sector of the battle, which meant another victory for Alexander. By the end of the year, the key cities of Babylon and Susa had surrendered to him and early in the next he smashed his way into the Persian heartland to seize Persepolis, where the great palace of the Great Kings was first thoroughly looted and then ruthlessly burned to the ground. There was then no doubt that his army had

Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of

achieved “revenge” against the Persians for the latter’s destruction of Greek places, especially Athens, in the famous Persian Wars of one hundred fifty years before. The “crusade” against the Persians appeared to be close to its end; Alexander simply had to catch up with Darius and all would be complete. Darius had other ideas, however. He had retreated into the eastern reaches of his realm to build up fresh forces against Alexander’s advance; he still had no intention of capitulating to the Macedonian or of giving up the fight. Unfortunately, Darius’ commanders had come to consider him unfit to rule, especially a satrap named Bessos, who seized authority from Darius by arresting him and then left him behind mortally wounded (July 330 BCE). Bessos declared himself Great King Artaxerxes and moved into Bactria (roughly mod. Afghanistan) to continue the resistance efforts against the western invaders. There were then two Great Kings, as Alexander also staked his right to the Persian throne not only by conquest but also by the loyalty shown him by many Persian satraps, troops, local populations, and members of the Persian royal family, who all preferred Alexander over Bessos. Regardless of such support, Alexander would have to continue the fight in order to secure his position as “Lord of Asia.” He amazed his adversaries and their supporters by moving his forces quickly through the challenging Hindu Kush; a year after the murder of Darius, Bessos faced desertion and execution himself, perhaps by means of crucifixion, at the hands of fellow Persian nobles. Yet the wars of Alexander still did not end there. He faced heavy resistance from the inhabitants of Sogdia (today’s northern Afghanistan and southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), who regarded him as an invader interfering in their traditional patterns of life and who had sided with Bessos. Alexander did everything he could over the next two years to quell the resulting guerilla warfare (including carrying out terrorizing atrocities against local populations) and to earn the respect of the Sogdians. Most famously, he ordered skilled climbers among his troops to scale the Sogdian Rock, a high, precipitous mountain stronghold to which many of the enemy had retreated; they surrendered when they saw that Alexander led men who had “wings” (that is, troops who could scale the Rock to attack the Sogdians). His military exploits in Bactria and Sogdia were not just a matter of guaranteeing the loyalty of those territories within his new empire, however; Alexander had clearly come to desire the conquest of the entire eastern edge of the oikoumene¯, the inhabited world as the Greeks understood it. That meant the submission, or conquest if necessary, of “India” (what would today be Pakistan and northwest India). Here, he found some local leaders (like the ruler of Taxila) willing to submit to him in exchange for military assistance against their rivals. Alexander obliged. The fiercest opposition came from Poros. He deployed numerous war elephants and clever strategy against Alexander’s own genius, resulting in a fierce battle at

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the River Hydaspes (May 326 BCE). Alexander’s forces won, and Poros became another ally of the overlord from faraway Macedon. This was the last of Alexander’s pitched battles, his men having mutinied against any further adventures into the Indian subcontinent or beyond. He contented himself then with moving down the Indus River to the Ocean, leaving a terrible trail of carnage and devastation in his wake as the local populations mounted the fiercest guerilla resistance he had ever seen. Three years later (323 BCE), Alexander the Great was dead in Babylon, the victim of serious illness that his exhausted constitution could not resist. Ancient sources relate his desire to engage in further wars of conquest, southward into Arabia, westward toward Italy and beyond, but none of these plans can be verified with available evidence. What can be concluded from such evidence is that Alexander, building upon his father’s simple notion of a “war of revenge,” had achieved more victories and secured more territory than any other man in the history of the Greeks. This helped elevate him to the status of a superhuman being in the minds of many people, whether they praised his military successes or hated his ambitions for the unprecedented slaughter and destruction that they had unleashed. Regardless of which view of Alexander they held, later generations of Greeks could not deny that his wars ushered in an era (that we call Hellenistic) in which they along with Anatolians, Syrians, Jews, Egyptians, Persians, Indians, and others engaged in an exchange of cultures, goods, and beliefs unparalleled in previous centuries. Certainly, the world of the ancient Greeks, and of their neighbors to the east, was never the same after the wars of Alexander the Great. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Skeptics; Philosophy, Stoics; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Cavalry; Hoplite Soldiers; Leagues/Alliances; Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Phalanx; Siege Technology; Religion and Beliefs: Deification; Oracles; Science and Technology: Exploration; Primary Documents: Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE) FURTHER READING Bosworth, A. B. 1988. Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Briant, P. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Green, P. 1991. Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hammond, N. G. L. 1997. The Genius of Alexander the Great. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies Heckel, W. 2007. The Conquests of Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shipley, G. 2000. The Greek World after Alexander. London and New York: Routledge. Wheeler, M. 1968. Flames over Persepolis. New York: Reynal. Wood, M. 1997. In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Worthington, I. 2008. Philip II of Macedonia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

ALLIANCES. See LEAGUES/ALLIANCES ARISTOCRACIES In the so-called Dark Age of Greece’s history (roughly the twelfth through the ninth centuries BCE), a transition took place in most of those Greek communities that survived the collapse of Mycenaean civilization (c. 1700–1100 BCE). Instead of accepting tight political control at the hands of a king (wanax in Mycenaean Greek, basileus in classical Greek), wealthy and influential families that considered themselves the “best” people of their community, the aristoi, hemmed in royal authority. Such aristocrats, famous in Greek storytelling for their competitiveness and jealous rivalries, limited the powers of kings to suit their own interests; in fact, in most of central and southern Greece, across the Aegean Islands to Asia Minor, and in the Greek colonies of the western Mediterranean and the Black Sea, aristocrats eventually removed monarchs from the scene altogether. Hence, most of the Greek communities became aristocracies, ruled by the few men (oligarchs) who felt themselves best-suited to govern. Greek aristoi defended their power and their superior status in the community through strategic use of their landed wealth and especially through their expert hunting and fighting skills, which they employed as charioteers, horsemen, and heavily armored warriors in the service of their city-states. They also employed their considerable resources against one another. For example, in Athens of the later seventh century BCE, which was then governed by the aristocratic Council of the Areopagus, a member of the elite named Cylon attempted to seize political control against his rivals using a personal army of retainers provided by his fatherin-law; he failed and escaped, but his followers were slaughtered by the forces of another aristocratic clan, the Alcmaeonids. Even the legal reforms of an Athenian aristocrat named Draco not many years later could not really curb the retaliatory nature of upper-class factionalism, typical not only in Athens but in most Greek communities.

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In some city-states, the commoners who formed the hoplite armies (foot soldiers provided by the non-elite citizens) overthrew, or at least reduced, aristocratic political power for their own benefit. Yet they still relied on the aristoi of their communities almost invariably to lead the way in trying to please divine forces; most Greeks did not feel they had the “special touch” or favor of the gods as did the aristocrats among them, and so they deferred to men and women of that status to preside over communal religious practices and to “donate” many of the resources for those practices. In this way, as essential players in the communal religion that was essential to every Greek population, aristocrats maintained considerable influence, influence that they could translate into political power. Furthermore, Greek aristocrats created the festivals of competition, at first against neighboring elites, later against rivals across Greece in the form of the Panhellenic games (like the Olympics), that honored the gods, and themselves, in a big way. Greek athletics, in fact, institutionalized the rivalry among Greek aristocrats, especially since they were the principal contestants and most of the international spectators at the grand events. Greek communities recorded with great pride the successes of their aristocratic representatives, most famously the chariot teams that they provided in such games. Even in Athens, despite its turn to fierce democracy (especially in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE), aristocrats still often held sway. Scholarly investigation of our ancient evidence has confirmed that perhaps a thousand Athenian men were truly the most active in proposing, debating, and moving policies within the Athenian assembly and the various committees and councils that labored on its behalf. These “political” citizens also volunteered for special commissions, offering their time and expertise, and among them, the most prominent were some twenty unpaid aristocrats, who seem to have actually dominated decision-making within the democratic structure. Like their counterparts in other Greek communities, they not only possessed family name and wealth, but high-level education and persuasive rhetorical skills, which allowed them to remain politically active. Such aristocrats gathered together with other like-minded, wealthy citizens in associations (hetaireia) defined by kinship (genia), marriage (ke¯deia), friendship (  philia), and hospitality (xenia), often placing the goals of these associations and the agendas of their leaders ahead of the common good, or arguing for those goals and agendas as the common good. The aristocratic leaders of these groups seem to have influenced almost every recorded act of the Athenian “people,” demonstrating the continued political power of the aristocracy within a technically democratic setting. Sometimes, aristocratic government was imposed on a community from the outside. When the oligarchic Spartans began to get the upper hand in the

Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies

Peloponnesian War against Athens, for instance, they did install harmostai, or governors, from Sparta in cities taken over from their enemies, but more important they supported local, pro-Spartan aristocrats to establish ruling councils (dekarchiai, councils of ten men) in those cities. Similarly, when they forced Athens to surrender at the conclusion of the war, the Spartans supported an aristocratic coup d’état, in which wealthy, pro-Spartan Athenians seized power and pushed the assembly of voters to elect a board of thirty men to direct affairs and revise the laws. These Thirty Tyrants, as they were dubbed by their enemies, called themselves kaloi k’agathoi, “the beautiful and good” citizens of Athens, naturally suited to rule their city and guide it away from the mistakes made by the “masses” in the generations since the democracy had taken hold. Members of the Thirty, like Critias, a close friend of Socrates, disagreed fundamentally with democratic ideals and practices, truly believing in the justice of an aristocratic oligarchy. Many of the Thirty, including Critias, died in the ensuing struggle for control of Athens between the oligarchs and the democrats. When the Spartans intervened with force to stop the feuding Athenians from wiping each other out, they took the remaining oligarchs, their families and supporters to the village of Eleusis, within Athenian territory but some fifteen miles from the city itself, and established them there in an independent aristocratic state (temporarily). It was his close association with blue-blooded Athenian aristocrats, all anti-democratic (like Critias and Charmides, the uncles of Plato, Plato himself, Xenophon, and others), that in fact precipitated the trial and execution of Socrates by the restored democracy. In the Dark Age of Greece (c. 1100–800 BCE), aristoi were few in number, hereditary in status, and had close ties to their local king; they often worked to produce their own wealth, but still lived well above the average Greek. By the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), and beyond, the aristocracy had widened to include more families and held fewer ties to any authority figure above them (if they had even left a local ruler in place at all), yet Greek aristocrats had also distanced themselves even more from the rest of the “people.” They would no longer do any work themselves, for instance, but hired servants and bought slaves to do that for them. They advertised themselves in monuments and family crypts. They owned more than one residence, which typically other Greeks could not afford, having a townhouse in the heart of the city and perhaps one or more private estates on the outskirts, away from the crowds of commoners. Sometimes, as in the case of the philosopher Plato, such suburban properties sat near very sacred places, and Greek aristocrats enjoyed appropriating some of that holiness for themselves; it added to their mystique and to their status. They engaged in one-upmanship in everything, competing with one another whenever possible to display their honor and successes, their

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courteous gifts and their hospitality, to one another and the community, and they tried hard to cover their shame and failures. Even when they wanted to, Greeks of other social statuses could not do these things as well as the aristoi; everyone knew it and everyone heralded it. The eighth-century BCE poet Hesiod had labeled the aristocrats of his time as unjust “bribe-devouring” leeches, complaints echoed over three centuries later by the lower status characters in the comedies of the playwright Aristophanes. Some things, apparently, never changed. Social revolutions in several poleis did challenge aristocratic leadership, and sometimes the might and clout of the hoplites overshadowed it. Yet it remained strong across the Greek world. Aristocratic power and latitude tended to be tempered more and more by regulations, but aristocracy continued as the political norm through the vast majority of city-states; the Greek people elected, appointed, or at least sanctioned aristocratic priests to commune with the gods, aristocratic politicians to develop public policies through governing councils, aristocratic officers to lead them in battle, aristocratic horsemen to serve in the cavalry, and aristocratic benefactors to “freely” offer up wealth for the good of the entire community. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Landownership; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Family and Gender: Clans/Gene¯; Food and Drink: Hospitality; Politics and Warfare: Aristotle, Political Theory of; Assemblies; Athenian Constitution; City-States; Civil War; Councils; Democracies; Diplomacy; Hoplite Soldiers; Monarchies; Phalanx; Plato, Political Theory of; Public Officials; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Horse Racing; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Olympic Games; Symposia FURTHER READING Adkins, A. W. H. 1960. Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Adkins, A. W. H. 1972. Moral Values and Political Behavior in Ancient Greece. New York: W. W. Norton. Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. New York: Arno Press. Donlan, W. 1980. The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece. Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press. Mitchell, L.  G., and P.  J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Starr, C. G. 1992. The Aristocratic Temper of Greek Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Politics and Warfare: Aristotle, Political Theory of

ARISTOTLE, POLITICAL THEORY OF The philosopher Aristotle (c. 384–322 BCE) broke away from the political teachings of his mentor Plato when he chose to reject presumably ideal qualities for the “perfect” state in favor of proceeding toward the “best constitution” through observation of the evidence provided by actual sociopolitical systems operating within the Greek world. His students apparently did most of the legwork for this endeavor, collecting data on almost two hundred Greek communities. This presented Aristotle with quite a variety of options to consider in his search for the “perfect” state. Analyzing these different constitutions suggested to him that just about every Greek state (with notable exceptions, like Sparta) had grown from the building block of the family; the family was thus the prototype of community and government. Greek families in his day, as in generation upon generation previously, functioned as monarchies did in the political realm, with the male kyrios, the legal head of the household, in a commanding position with respect to the other males, and especially to the women and slaves, within the family. As each Greek village and town formed through an association of families, the male family members, especially the kyrioi, had joined together in various ways to establish governmental institutions for that community. In some of them, male family members had supported the power of a single individual or a single ruling family to enforce rules of conduct; in others, they preferred to see a number of families take the lead in their society. Thus came about the development of the political systems of monarchy and aristocracy in much of the Greek world. Slaves, no matter their origin, were excluded from such political participation, as were women, children, and resident aliens. Politics, in the Greek mentality, involved free, equal, male individuals. The most significant common denominator among the various Greek constitutions Aristotle had already perceived in his earlier botanical and especially zoological studies. Just as living things seemed to him designed not merely to survive but to flourish, that is, to achieve their maximum potential, so, too, it appeared to him that different sociopolitical systems existed not only for the sake of their own self-preservation and the self-preservation of their citizens, but also for the sake of promoting the fulfillment of those citizens, what he termed eudaimonia. Certainly, citizens of any Greek community under examination would have regarded themselves as flourishing if they had been satisfied with their form of society and politics and, thus, would have claimed their community to be the best place to live. This insight provided Aristotle with a yardstick by which to measure the different constitutions that he and his students had investigated; those sociopolitical systems that in fact promoted the most opportunity for eudaimonia, on the

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part of the individual and the community as a whole, ought to be labeled the “best” systems, he thought. Proceeding to examine and evaluate the elements of the various constitutions, he noticed that they were each adapted to the character and the needs of a particular population in its particular circumstances; Greek Sophists had noted a hundred years earlier how every Greek state seemed to have undergone its own unique developmental process. Aristotle found that he had to agree with the Sophists: particular socioeconomic conditions favored the particular sociopolitical systems suitable to them. Indeed, Aristotle came to believe that some systems, though appearing imperfect to an outside viewer, might indeed be the best possible, given the conditions of a population. Thus, he had to disagree with Plato: to force the same, one-size-fits-all, “utopian” system on all Greek communities could destroy some of them for no real benefit. Like earlier Greek authors (especially the poet Pindar and the historian Herodotus, as well as Plato), Aristotle conceived of constitutions as very prone to decay. Hence, rule by one person could degenerate into self-centered tyranny; rule by several could remain at the level of only the rich and the blue-blooded, in which case it would degenerate into a crass oligarchy; and rule by many individuals could vacillate constantly under the spell of the majority will, benefiting “the masses” at the expense of all other citizens. All these forms of decay resulted from unchecked, illegitimate, or abusive power. Inherent flaws existed in every sort of constitution that he and his students had studied, the outcome of human psychology more than anything else. Still, where rulers sought the well-being of their subjects, where the several possessed sound education and pursued wise courses of action, and where the majority adhered to the laws and sought the good of the minority as well as their own, stable forms of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy flourished. So, just as he did in his other fields of study, Aristotle saw in the sociopolitical realm the significance of a “mean” between “extremes”; a biologist might prove that severe heat or severe cold were beneficial for certain species of living things, but he would still have to advocate a temperate climate as the best for most species. Aristotle recognized that “temperate climate” in a sociopolitical sense in the constitutions of the Ionian Greek cities of Asia Minor, as well as in the political discussions embedded in the works of the Sophists and the Athenian playwrights (like Sophocles and Euripides). Thus, he arrived at the conclusion that would have offended his mentor Plato most deeply: a moderate form of government, a hybrid of aristocratic and democratic elements, relying on a sizable and stable “middle class” as its sociopolitical center of gravity, but also including sufficient involvement of the wealthy and the noble, would keep in check the destructive tendencies of overweening greed and envious poverty and so would have the best chance,

Politics and Warfare: Aristotle, Political Theory of

based on recorded experience and analysis, of delaying or even preventing the cycle of sociopolitical decay. This sort of state he simply termed politeia, constitution itself. The citizens of this “best possible” society would be limited in number, including only those who had the time and leisure (that is, the economic stability) to be fully participatory in decision-making for the community, in taking turns ruling and being ruled by one another. As a result, not only would women and resident aliens still be left out, as was common throughout Greece, but also farmers, artisans, and day-laborers. Yet, within such a politeia, management of public lands would subsidize collective institutions, including public education in morality (which would inculcate virtue and hence promote ethical relations among citizens) and science (which would give citizens the tools to overcome the practical obstacles facing their community). Together with a strong confidence in the rule of law, this would create the best environment and afford the most opportunity for individual and communal eudaimonia. Built upon his study of ethics and biology, Aristotle’s political theory asserted that the purpose of good government was not to bring about eternal unity or harmony, as Plato would have advocated, because such a notion was not realistic and not appropriate to a community of separate individual beings. Each community did possess a collective identity, but constitutions survived only when support for them among the individuals within them remained stronger than internal criticisms or opposition. The purpose of good government, then, was to bring about a sense of flourishing, in terms of one’s goods, one’s land, one’s social position, and one’s political honors, to each and every full citizen. Indeed, all in the community would benefit in some way from this self-realization of the citizens. The historian Thucydides once wrote that his home country of Athens, immediately after the restoration of democracy in 410 BCE, enjoyed the best constitution in its entire history because it was “a moderate blending of the few and the many.” Plato, who witnessed this moment in history and perhaps resisted the lesson Thucydides had drawn from it, eventually did suggest something similar in his Laws. It was Aristotle, however, who developed the empirical justification for such a “mixed constitution” (mikte¯ politeia), a concept obviously embraced by the federal leagues of Hellenistic times and given even further impact with the description of the Roman Republic as such a socioeconomic system by the Greek historian Polybius in the second century BCE. Even today, students of American history should recognize in Aristotle’s political analysis and conclusions key notions of the original U.S. Constitution, with its separation of powers, checks and balances, and even limitations on political participation. See also: Arts: History; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Lyric; Sophists; Economics and Work: Landownership;

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Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Family and Gender: Fathers; Men; Women; Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Athenian Constitution; Citizenship; Democracies; Leagues/Alliances; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Education; Zoology FURTHER READING Barker, E. 1959. The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. New York: Dover. Barker, E. 1960. Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors. London: Methuen. Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cartledge, P. 2009. Political Thought in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harte, V., and M. Lane, eds. 2013. Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kagan, D. 1991. Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. New York: Macmillan. Keyt, D., and F. D. Miller, Jr., eds. 1991. A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraut, R. 2002. Aristotle: Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mulgan, R. G. 1977. Aristotle’s Political Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Von Fritz, K. 1954. The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity. New York: Columbia University Press.

ARMS AND ARMOR From Mycenaean to Hellenistic times, the arms and armor of Greek warriors and soldiers differed in certain details, but many elements remained quite similar. For example, a full complement of arms and armor, a panoplia, in all periods of Greek history consisted of a helmet, a shield, a sword, a spear or lance, as well as some sort of protective covering for the torso and the shins. The oldest form of protection for the head of a Greek warrior appears to have been a close-fitting cap made of leather; it covered the entire skull and the back of the head, usually tied to the neck by leather straps and sometimes lined inside with felt for greater comfort. The animal-hide of such caps (kunai), if tanned well enough, could easily deflect glancing blows from sharp weapons. In Mycenaean times (c. 1700–1100 BCE), the tusks of wild boars, captured in the ever-popular hunt, were sewn to these caps for added protection and likely also, as with the tradition of wearing animal skins over the head, to convey some of the power of the animal to the warrior in totemic fashion. Many Greek soldiers in later generations continued to wear leather kunai, or at least attached felt lining for comfort under their metal helmets (krane¯ or

Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor

koruthes); some, of course, could not afford anything more than a felt or leather head-covering. Early on, the kranos or korus seems to have been nothing more than a large, cone-shaped skullcap (the pilos type, popular among the Spartans as a proof of courage) riveted together out of bronze sheets (in thickness ranging from eight-hundredths of an inch to one-and-a-half inches and weighing as much as four-and-a-half pounds); to it, Greek armorers sometimes added neck-pieces, forehead-pieces, nose-pieces, and cheek-pieces, sometimes rigidly attached, sometimes more flexibly by means of hinges. Although the Greeks continued to manufacture helmets without any protection for the face, like those famously worn by Alexander the Great, by at least the time of the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, the typical Greek helmet was fashioned to cover the entire head and leave only small openings for the eyes and mouth, preserving good lateral visibility while giving the helmet the appearance of a haunting mask. Weighing two to three pounds, such “Corinthian” helmets consisted of cast and hammered sheets of bronze (roughly four-hundredths to eight-hundredths of an inch thick) soldered together; they also came in a lighter, modified version (“Chalcidian”). The neck-piece of such helmets might be flared slightly outward, while the hinged cheek-pieces typically were extended downward below the face, in both cases providing extra protection of the neck, which was one of the main targets in Greek hand-tohand combat. In addition, many helmets, as far back as Homer’s time, were designed with studs on the outside to deflect blows or a metal ridge running along the top of the head; into this ridge would be inserted feathers or horsehair to create a crest or a plume, which made Greek soldiers appear Terracotta jar, or amphora, depicting one warrior taller, gave them added protection on his knees struggling to defend himself against against certain blows to the head, a standing warrior on the attack, c. 500–480 BCE. and, again, were likely thought They both are armored in Greek fashion, with plumed helmets, breastplates, and greaves, and to confer upon them some of the carry round shields, swords, and thrusting spears. animal’s “magical” powers. (J. Paul Getty Museum)

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Greek body armor commonly consisted of the linothoˉrax, the thoˉrax, and the kne¯mides. The linothoˉrax, known since at least Homer’s time, was a heavy vest, made of as many as fourteen layers of linen, with additions of leather strips and iron plates or studs to give added protection to the most vulnerable spots. Indeed, from early on in Greek history, linothoˉrakes might be covered with scales of metal resembling those of serpents or fish; this was the closest the ancient Greeks came to coats of mail. Thick linen and leather body armor functioned just as well in combat as metal body armor, so the linothoˉrax remained the typical outfit of some Greek troops, especially the light-armed. Meanwhile, the thoˉrax became the standard for the heavily armed hoplites. Scholars today are divided on whether this happened because the wealthier hoplites could invest in metal equipment or because, in fact, the metal panoply was less costly to make, purchase, and maintain. Early specimens of the thoˉrax from Mycenaean times appear to have been fashioned from large strips or rings of bronze welded one to another to form a sort of bell-shape; they covered the warrior from shoulders down to below the waist and would have been difficult to maneuver in, considering their bulkiness and weight. In the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), Greeks began to fashion a much more elegant thoˉrax, its metal sheets, usually iron, more molded to the chest and back of the wearer, its upper edge fashioned into a metal collar and its bottom edge flared, the whole thing hammered out thinner, and only reaching down to the waistline. Eventually, Greek officers sported even thinner and more sculpted thoˉrakes, the breastplate fashioned to resemble a muscular chest. For more protection of the shoulders and waistline, thick leather straps called pteruges, or wings, often reinforced with metallic plates, were added to both linothoˉrakes and thoˉrakes. The kne¯mides constituted the last element of body armor; they were greaves or shin guards fashioned out of bronze with an inner lining of felt attached. Kne¯mides weighed about two pounds per pair, but were relatively thin (about four-hundredths of an inch thick), and flexible, capable of being molded like elastic around the lower leg (up to the kneecap in some cases), where they were tied with straps or buckled closed. A few Greek soldiers wore similar guards for their ankles, thighs, and arms. One last piece of protective gear was the shield. In the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greeks sported large round shields that covered the warrior from shoulder to waistline, as well as the famous body shields, shaped like a figure eight and stretching from the back of the head down almost to the ankles. The round shield, or aspis, remained in use for hoplites after the collapse of Mycenaean civilization; it weighed thirteen to fifteen pounds and measured some thirty to forty inches in diameter, thus capable of protecting from the chin to the knees. It was soon joined by the oval shield, or sakos, which provided slightly more coverage and especially

Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor

could be planted more easily in the ground in a standing position, if need be. Meanwhile, light-armed troops carried the pelta, a crescent-shaped shield that basically only covered the arm. Where the pelta was constructed of wood or wicker with an outer layer of animal leather, both the aspis and the sakos were constructed of a concave wooden core about three-quarters of an inch thick, topped by layer upon layer of bull’s hide, sewn together and finally covered over on the outside by a metal layer, nailed into place, of bronze or iron between two-hundredths and four-hundredths of an inch thick. On the inner side, shields were grasped and maneuvered with handles and straps that varied in design over time and among city-states. At the center of the outer plating was usually attached a metal boss of some sort, for added strength against direct blows, which could be deflected off it. Eastern Greeks attached an apron of leather or fabric to their shields for further protection of the legs and groin. In addition, Greek soldiers were clearly fond of having the outer shell of their shields inscribed with mottoes and decorated with all sorts of animal or mythological images, many apotropaic in nature, as well as the symbols of their communities, such as the Athenian owl or the Spartan lambda (for Lacedaemon). Body armor and helmets did a better job of protecting their wearers than shields did; their curved surfaces provided fairly effective defense, even against catapult bolts launched from as close as twenty paces. No wonder that Greek combatants sought the gaps in armor as the principal targets for their offensive maneuvers. From earliest times, Greek warriors fought offensively using the sword called xiphos and the lance or spear called doru. In the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), the ash-wood doru measured about an inch thick, stretched roughly six feet long, and weighed some four and half pounds; its iron shaft accounted for roughly half of this weight and, tipped with a leaf-shaped blade, could measure from ten to twenty inches long. Shorter versions of the doru might only be two or three feet in length, but more of that length would have been iron shaft. In combat, Greek troops typically carried multiple spears and lances, utilizing them as their principal weapon, with which they aimed either at their opponents’ exposed necks or poorly protected groins. Light-armed soldiers frequently carried throwing spears equipped with a special strap known as an ankyle¯; wound around one end of the spear, the ankyle¯ imparted a spinning action to the weapon once it was unwound, helping it to fly straight and far. In the fourth century BCE, Macedonian weapons-makers (perhaps King Philip II himself ) designed the xyston, a nine-foot-long thrusting lance in place of the doru for his Hetairoi (Cavalry Companions) and the sarissa, an eighteen-foot-long pike tipped with a two-foot-long iron head for the Pezetairoi (Infantry Companions). Unlike earlier lances, the heavier sarissa (eleven to fifteen pounds) required two hands to balance and maneuver it; its spiked end (which itself weighed two

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pounds) could also be used as a weapon and by elevating their sarissae, soldiers could create a screen of spears to protect their ranks. The xiphos or sword, bronze before the Archaic Period and iron from then onward, consisted of a narrow blade that widened near the tip; it might measure anywhere from eighteen to forty-five inches long and weigh about two pounds, and was typically sharp on both edges, which were also usually curved to form a point. The xiphos was thus best for cutting, but could also be used for thrusting. The Spartans preferred a machete-like sword called machaira, which measured some twenty to thirty inches long, was dull along the relatively straight top edge, and sharp on the bottom, curved edge; it was ideal for hacking and stabbing. Variation in standard weaponry often occurred as a result of local cultural habits; Boeotian soldiers, for instance, employed shields with cut-outs on left and right to allow more maneuverability of weaponry around the shield, and Greeks influenced by the Carian culture of southwestern Turkey employed sickles (harpai) in combat. Moreover, during the Peloponnesian War and in its wake, the Greeks tended to replace or reevaluate the standard panoply in favor of increased mobility; they wore less armor (down from a fifty-pound panoplia to about twenty-four pounds), utilized the pelta more and the weapons of the Thracian peltasts (javelins and knives, as well as thrusting spears), and employed more psiloi (stripped soldiers), light skirmishers armed with sling (sphendone¯), bow (toxon), and javelin (akoˉn or akontio) in the style of the warriors of Crete, Rhodes, and the Balearic Islands, or, by early Hellenistic times, thureophoroi (carrying oval shield and spear) and Tarentine cavalry (armed with javelins instead of lances) for quickness and screening of phalanxes. Arms and armor came to occupy a prized place in the culture of the ancient Greeks. Naturally, they lavished money and skill on the creation of such items for the sake of their practical usefulness in combat. Until the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), in which there was much more uniformity of production, most arms and armor were manufactured (in the literal sense) by individual craftsmen; only a few Classical city-states had the wherewithal to mass-produce panoplies (as Syracuse did under its tyrants, turning out as many as 14,000 sets at one time). Until the Hellenistic Era, each soldier owned and maintained his own equipment, which made arms and armor items of very personal significance. More than this, however, the Greeks dedicated to their gods (to Zeus at the shrine of Olympia, for example) large amounts of arms and armor; these gifts at once heralded the military strength of Greek soldiers and of whole communities and thanked the divine powers for that strength, which Greeks believed their gods greatly admired. See also: Economics and Work: Cloth-Making; Metalworking; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Hoplite Soldiers; Peloponnesian War

Politics and Warfare: Assemblies

(431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Phalanx; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status FURTHER READING Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hanson, V. D. 1989. The Western Way of War. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hanson, V. D., ed. 1991. Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience. London and New York: Routledge. Snodgrass, A. 1964. Early Greek Armour and Weapons. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Snodgrass, A. 1999. Arms and Armor of the Greeks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Spence, I. G. 1993. The Cavalry of Classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van Wees, H., ed. 2000. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales.

ASSEMBLIES The holding of assemblies was one of the defining characteristics of ancient Greek civilization. Indeed, many scholars would argue that it was this cultural tendency to convene assemblies at times of important decision-making that made possible the development of democratic institutions in many parts of the ancient Greek world. In Mycenaean civilization (c. 1700–1100 BCE), the oldest Greek culture known to us, evidence suggests no involvement in decision-making on the part of the common people. Mycenaean citadels were literally owned by the local wanax, or chief; his hequetai, or companion warriors shored up his power through military force, as his bureaucrats, specialists, administrators, and so on did through their particular skills. The damos, or “people” (de¯mos in later Greek), consisted of farmers and craftsmen, who were completely under the authority of the hierarchy of power and with whom that hierarchy of power had apparently no need of consultation. By the time of the poet Homer, something had changed, however. The citadels were gone, and so were the all-powerful wanakes, their loyal warriors and bureaucrats, replaced by small, self-sufficient communities under the authority of a basileus, a wealthy king, who strove to maintain his own status against the competition of his aristocratic peers partly through frequent consultation with the damos, which now included all free men. Before making decisions that would impact the

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entire community, the basileus, as a good “shepherd of his people,” would gauge the sentiments of the damos by calling them together in an assembly (Homer likes to use terms related to the word agora, “gathering-place”); there, he could also attempt to mobilize their support for his plans or direct them toward an enemy in warfare. Even when many Greek kings found themselves, nonetheless, overthrown or shoved aside by the other aristocrats, the latter still continued to consult with the commoners in some fashion. This became the norm by the late Archaic Period, say around 600 BCE. Aristocrats, members of the wealthiest and most powerful families in each community, or their representatives, would gather in a governing council (typically called a boule¯), while the non-aristocrats or commoners would be summoned by upperclass leaders to attend an assembly in or near the community’s agora. The Spartans, as an example, had one of the oldest traditions of popular assembly. Their apella as it was called consisted of all full Spartan citizen males age thirty and above. They elected the council of elders (gerousia) that served as the steering committee for the assembly as well as the board of annual ephors who took care of the everyday administration of the city and possessed other wide powers. The apella had minimal legislative powers, though; the voting men had no right to propose, amend, or debate motions brought by the gerousia or ephors; they could only pass or reject what had been presented to them by the leadership. Indeed, the apella could be overridden by vote of the gerousia, which even further limited the assembly’s authority. In the far north of Greece, some places still followed the old Homeric tradition of consulting assemblies of those designated as warriors. Such was the case in the kingdom of Macedon, where Philip II called together his hetairoi, “companions in arms,” a group which he might expand to include not just the traditional warriorson-horseback but also the infantry forces recruited by the king. In the spring and again in the fall of each year, this assembly met to be informed of matters of significance to the monarch, who expected the approval of his fighting men and, sometimes, their reactions; they would support him, as long as he fulfilled their expectations of a warlord. Still, the only real power of their gathering was in the acclamation of a new king at the start of his reign. The greatest amount of information on the nature, powers, and functions of an ancient Greek assembly, and its evolution over time, comes from Athens. The archons of Athens, magistrates originally chosen from the aristocratic families, convened an assembly, or ekkle¯sia, that included all adult male citizens (age twenty and above). Thanks to the efforts of the famous reformer Solon early in the sixth century BCE, this ekkle¯sia had the authority to pass new legislation (which was then displayed publicly in the agora on stone inscriptions, unlike in most poleis), to select archons and other officials (either through direct election or a lottery process

Politics and Warfare: Assemblies

from a list of pre-screened candidates, the details being hard to nail down today), and to serve as a court of appeals (he¯liaea) against the decisions of the magistrates or the aristocratic council (Areopagus). Voting in the ekkle¯sia took place by show of hands (cheirotonia); thus, everyone’s decision could be noted by their fellow citizens, praised or blamed openly, and marked down in the minds of those who wanted to reward or punish such votes. Simple majority, as determined by the presiding officials, was sufficient for the approval of actions, resolutions, laws, and so on. Later, the reforms of Cleisthenes at the end of the sixth century BCE gave the adult male Athenians full sovereignty. Once summoned to the Pnyx hill (southwest of the agora itself ) by the archons or the prytaneis (presiders over a new, more democratically selected boule¯), Athenian men were rounded up by public slaves who used a rope covered in red dust to guide them to the meeting place; if someone was discovered away from the Pnyx despite the red dust on his clothes, he would be fined for being absent from the assembly. Every male citizen who did attend had the right to speak on any issue, to debate or to amend any proposed legislation, and to make counter-proposals of his own. This fully empowered Athenian assembly met four times per month (known as a prytaneia or prytany, after the prytaneis), and since the Athenian calendar consisted of ten lunar months, that amounted to forty times a year (plus extra meetings as necessary). By the middle of the fifth century BCE, the agenda of these meetings followed a set pattern. Sessions always began with an invocation to the gods, as there was no separation of religion and state in Athens (or any other Greek state for that matter). At the first meeting of each prytany, the voters reviewed their magistrates, the status of the city’s grain supply, and any security issues. At the second meeting, any voter in attendance could raise an issue of interest to him, his family or friends, or his political grouping. The third and fourth meetings of the month were reserved for handling matters of the communal religion, foreign policy decisions, any proposals from the new boule¯, and so on. In the early fifth century BCE, the radical politician Ephialtes persuaded the assembly to place the Areopagus under the oversight of the new boule¯ and to severely curtail the old aristocratic council’s political and judicial powers, many of which were either transferred to the ekkle¯sia, the boule¯, or the new dikaste¯ria (jury courts). The ekkle¯sia no longer elected archons and most other officials, who were chosen instead by means of a complex lottery system, but each spring, the voting men did elect ten strate¯goi, war leaders who handled the draft, developed military policy, commanded in the field, and so on. The strate¯goi became the most influential members of the Athenian government, but the assembly voted every prytany on the actions taken by those strate¯goi, and that could lead to dire consequences, as the

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generals of 406 BCE discovered. After a military debacle at sea, particular citizens of Athens exercised their right to bring accusations against a number of strate¯goi on charges of negligent homicide and sacrilege; a special ekkle¯sia was convened to hear these charges and, contrary to Athenian legal custom, the generals were tried as a group rather than as individual officials and condemned to execution (despite the effort of the famous philosopher Socrates, who even as presiding official still could not stop this). The trial of the strate¯goi revealed what many Athenians already knew well: a popular assembly with so much authority, where everyone could speak, could easily fall prey to persuasive rhetoric of a malicious kind rather than the truth. This was why Athens attracted so many Sophists, essentially teachers of rhetoric, and why so many demagogues arose from the Athenian populace to become leaders in assembly meetings. The assembly at Athens punished, and rewarded, citizens in other ways as well. On the one hand, it welcomed a young man into the military service by approving the completion of his compulsory military training; the ephebe, as he was called (ephe¯bos in Greek), had to display his talents to the voting citizens. On the other hand, the assembly at Athens also rejected citizens from their midst through the process of ostracism. Certainly, we know most about the functioning of the Athenian assembly, not least because of some six hundred preserved inscriptions of its decisions. These show us the concern of the ekkle¯sia in matters of citizenship and honors, military and foreign policy, religious festivals, public finances, justice, and proper procedure. As Athenians exported (often by force or forms of pressure) their political system to other parts of the Greek world, their form of ekkle¯sia became more commonplace. Many communities experienced Athenian influence at least and combined that with their own traditions to create variations on the democratic assembly. One final example can be cited in the case of the Aetolian League, a coalition of states in central Greece. All the member states shared sympoliteia (league citizenship), which permitted any male citizens from those states to attend a panAetolian ekkle¯sia twice a year (in spring and fall). Despite coming from particular communities, these men did not have to cast their community’s vote, but were free to make their own individual choices within the assembly, on matters pertaining to the league treasury, the league army, the league currency, and so on, and in the elections of league strate¯gos, of league boule¯, and of league managers, or apokle¯toi, all of whom were accountable to the ultimate oversight of the ekkle¯sia panaetolika. The assemblies of their world reflected the ancient Greek commitment to civic involvement through the vote as well as their respect for laws and law-making.

Politics and Warfare: Athenian Constitution

Although attendance at most assemblies was likely very slack (for instance, at Athens, there was no required quorum for most meetings and scholars have estimated that perhaps only 12 percent of the eligible Athenian voters actually showed up, predominantly those who resided downtown), nonetheless Greek men took passionate pride in the fact that they had the right to attend, that they held the ultimate political destiny of their community in their hands. See also: Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Athenian Constitution; Civil War; Democracies; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Public Officials; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Primary Documents: Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE) FURTHER READING Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carlsson, S. 2010. Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence, and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Cartledge, P. 2003. The Spartans. New York: Random House/Vintage Press. Hansen, M. H. 1991. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Larsen, J. A. O. 1966. Representative Government in Greek and Roman History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge. Robinson, E. 2011. Democracy Beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek Classical Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowe, C., and M. Schofield, eds. 2000. The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sinclair, T. A. 1952. A History of Greek Political Thought. London and New York: Routledge.

ATHENIAN CONSTITUTION Athens did not begin as a democracy; that form of government and society developed there over a long period of time and as a result of many changes. Like other Greeks, the Athenians would have referred to their form of government and society as a politeia, which we render into English by the term constitution. During the Mycenaean Period (c. 1700–1100 BCE), the Athenians lived under a monarchy, and this seems to have continued, though perhaps with monarchs

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wielding less power, in the post-Mycenaean Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE). Then, close to the middle of the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), around 684 BCE, leading members of the Athenian aristocracy, the Eupatrides (well-born ones), ousted the king (basileus) and established the oligarchic Council of the Areopagus “to guard the laws and the state.” Numbering perhaps one hundred-fifty men, the Areopagus selected and advised three annual officials to replace the basileus in his executive functions: the Basileus archoˉn for religious matters, the polemarchos as military commander, and the epoˉnymos archoˉn for the administration of the city; later in the seventh century, the archons were joined by six thesmothetai (statute setters) to serve as judges. Over time, it also became customary that retired archons and thesmothetai join the ranks of the Areopagus themselves. Lifetime membership in the Areopagus Council gave its members jurisdiction over cases of arson, sacrilege, homicide, offenses against the polis, and official misconduct. As the Athenian population and territory expanded, this political and judicial arrangement, which left so much power and leverage in the hands of a relatively few aristocrats, did not prove satisfactory to all. Only fifty years after the overthrow of the last basileus, one aristocratic leader, Cylon, attempted to seize power for himself and, in a sense, restore the monarchy; his abortive “tyranny” failed. Growing disparities of wealth, enslavement of many Athenians by debt, and increasing social injustice and corruption, all indicators that the Areopagus was failing in its role as “guardian,” fueled fears of a social revolution akin to the one that rocked the nearby city-state of Megara. The aristocratic leadership selected Solon, one of their own, to arbitrate in this crisis, with much popular confidence. Seeing himself as a “strong shield” standing between (mesote¯s) the haves and the have-nots, Solon implemented several reforms that set his city on the path to democracy. First, his seisachtheia canceled all outstanding debts, freeing many citizens from debt enslavement. Next, he apparently conducted some sort of census and organized the citizenry thereby into four classes according to annual income from land owned; lineage would no longer matter as much as landed wealth. Most citizens were farmers and artisans, who qualified as zeugitai, or merchants and wage-laborers, who qualified as the¯tes. The wealthiest Athenians qualified as hippeis or pentakosiomedimnoi; these two groups now represented both the old fortunes of the aristocracy and the new fortunes of those who had surpassed their fellow citizens in economic success. Finally, Solon opened posts in the government to men of the top three classes; these were no longer the exclusive privilege of the Eupatrid clans. In addition, he convened all the adult male citizens of Athens as a formal assembly, the ekkle¯sia, with the power to elect government officials, to pass laws and display them publicly on axones (four-sided tablets) in the agora, and to serve as a court of appeals (he¯liaea) against the Areopagus and the officials, forcing them to check each other.

Politics and Warfare: Athenian Constitution

Among prior generations, the ekkle¯sia had simply served as a gathering of Athenian fighting men that validated declarations of war or peace. Within his reforms, Solon had confined the nine archonships to the pentakosiomedimnoi; Athens would be defended by foot soldiers, hoplites, who came from the zeugitai or higher classes, and by cavalry of aristocratic status. Solon had thus lessened the power of the Eupatrid elite over the social, economic, and political life of Athens, but had not eliminated their influence or involvement; he had widened the social base of political power, but still within limits of substantial wealth. The Areopagus, for example, retained full veto power over the ekkle¯sia, oversight of the government officials, and considerable judicial authority. Still, his reforms had freed and empowered thousands of Athenian citizens, something with quite revolutionary potential; as later supporters of democracy in Athens would see it, Solon had instilled in them a sense of their rights and had built a framework for the future development of those rights. Solon had attempted to guarantee an orderly society, free of socioeconomic strife, but instead rivalry among competing aristocratic factions produced anarchy, meaning literally the absence of archons to run the city. This soon turned to outright civil war among the major factions. One of them eventually succeeded in seizing control of Athens under its leader, Pisistratus. He maintained the system put into place by Solon, but “oversaw” all its elements. Together with his sons, the “tyrant” Pisistratus actually did much to enhance the wealth and prestige of Athens, and to give its citizens a stronger sense of their importance in determining the course of public affairs. In 510 BCE, a Spartan army aided the Athenians in ending the thirty-six-year regime of the Pisistratids. That family’s fall precipitated yet another factional struggle within Athens, again led by influential families. The rivals Isagoras and Cleisthenes fought over the future direction of their city. Isagoras seemed to hold the winning position, when he defeated Cleisthenes for an archonship in 508 BCE, but he undermined his own efforts by recalling the Spartans to support him in basically seizing control of Athens with three hundred of his supporters. This move sparked a popular uprising in favor of Cleisthenes; the Athenians forced the Spartans, Isagoras, and his faction to surrender and leave the city, and empowered Cleisthenes to make major reforms as “prostate¯s tou demou,” leader of the people, in 506 BCE. To encourage cooperation across the citizenry, fairness under the law, and practice in popular rule at the grassroots level, in which Cleisthenes apparently believed quite strongly, he organized Athenian territory into 139 demes (neighborhoods/villages, most already in existence, now expanded, and varying widely in population); he required that each deme annually select its own deme archon (neighborhood/village leader) through a lottery (the lottery list of names automatically included all adult male citizens of the deme) and convene its own deme

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ekkle¯sia (consisting of all adult male citizens of the deme), which would now be responsible for local funds, expenses, projects, rituals, festivals, and so on. Next, to further weaken the aristocratic families, which had precipitated so much of the civil strife with their factional rivalries, and to represent the interests of the general public more fully, Cleisthenes established the Boule¯. This Council of 500 consisted of ten delegations (each with fifty members chosen by lottery), one from each of the Athenian tribes; the tribes themselves were associations roughly equal in terms of numbers, to which the citizens of several demes were assigned. Councilors thus represented their demes and their tribes. Cleisthenes used the assignment of demes to particular tribes to break up the old aristocratic strongholds in Attica (as when he placed the demesmen of Probalinthos into the tribe Pandionis and the demesmen of Trikorynthos, Oinoe, and Marathon into the tribe Aiantis, thereby splitting up former supporters of the Pisistratids) and to gerrymander in his own favor as well (by combining in the same four tribes several urban demes with that of Phaleron, all loyal to his own Alcmaeonid family). Originally, tribesmen came from demes in different regions of the Athenian territory, a deliberate strategy on Cleisthenes’ part to compel Athenians of diverse experiences to work together, but membership in a deme and therefore in a tribe was also a status inherited from one’s father, attached to a person for life, regardless of residence; one could live in town and potentially lose all touch with one’s inherited deme in the country or by the seashore. Still, Cleisthenes implemented compensating factors. A voter was expected to participate regularly in the social, religious, and political life of his deme, regardless of where it was located in the wide Athenian territory; this would mean going back to and staying in touch with the interests of one’s ancestral place. Moreover, each tribe, like each deme, held regular meetings to handle affairs of concern to it and had its own officials selected by lottery. When a tribe sent its fifty representatives to the Boule¯ for a year of public service, these men (age thirty and above and from the top three classes) met every day except holidays in downtown Athens in their own building (the Bouleuterion), where they prepared the agenda and proposals for the ekkle¯sia. Cleisthenes gave to the ekkle¯sia, that is, the assembly of Athenian males age twenty and above, full political sovereignty. Every man there had the right to speak, to debate the agenda and proposals, make amendments and proposals of his own, and to vote. Meeting together below the Pnyx hill, Athenian men thus established direct democracy for themselves. The Athenians had eliminated the need to campaign for office. They had established a system in which, ideally, a cross-section of the citizenry, rich and poor, urban and rural, from diverse occupations and with diverse perspectives, determined the fate of the city-state at every level of governance through discussion,

Politics and Warfare: Carthage, Wars with

argument, and resolution. Yet they did not enforce any requirement to serve in the organs of the democracy, aside from the random assignments made through the lottery system. Many citizens, among them leading aristocrats, thus had the chance to opt out and simply mind their own business, while others were attracted to serve by the allowances paid to members of the Boule¯ in later generations. Still, so many citizens were eligible and willing to serve, and had the free time to do so thanks to the Athenian way of life (including the presence of slavery and hired labor), that the uninvolved did not impair the “national” system. Indeed, since they still involved themselves in the politics of their demes and tribes, the “national” system received the benefit just the same. The Athenian democracy, at its height in the fifth-century BCE, succeeded as a radically amateur government, dependent on involved citizens, regular voting, and respect for the law, with the ultimate power residing in the assembly of voters, not in free-wheeling officials. See also: Arts: History; Rhetoric; Sophists; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Assemblies; Citizenship; Civil War; Councils; Democracies; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Primary Documents: Aristophanes on an Ideal State Run by Women (392 BCE) FURTHER READING Adkins, A. W. H. 1960. Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Adkins, A. W. H. 1972. Moral Values and Political Behavior in Ancient Greece. New York: W. W. Norton. Christ, M. 2006. The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ober, J. 1996. The Athenian Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stockton, D. 1990. The Classical Athenian Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CARTHAGE, WARS WITH Modern scholars and students often overlook the major military confrontations that took place between the empire of Carthage and Greek city-states on the island of Sicily. Yet these wars had geopolitical ripple effects across the ancient Greek world. Sicily provided a battleground and a testing ground for key Greek political

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ideas, as well as methods and technologies of war, in an atmosphere of economic competition and cultural prejudice. The Greeks began to establish colonies at the eastern end of the island of Sicily in the 730s BCE; at just about the same time, the Phoenicians of Lebanon, ancestors of the Carthaginians, started to do the same at the western end. The Phoenicians settled primarily as merchants, while the Greeks had trade, agriculture, and exploitation of natural resources on their minds. By the middle of the sixth century, Phoenician influence and Greek influence on the island had grown large enough for collision of interests, which led to localized warfare on land, piracy and battles at sea. All this, in turn, led the Phoenician colonies to ask for protection from their “sister-city,” Carthage in North Africa. By the end of the sixth century, the Carthaginians had taken on the task of safeguarding Phoenician lives and interests in Sicily and throughout the western Mediterranean and of driving back the aggressive Greeks. That aggressiveness only increased as a consequence of the territorial wars fought among the Greek dictators (tyrannoi) of the Sicilian city-states, especially the seizure of Himera by the armies of Akragas (483 BCE). Himera sat close to the Carthaginian protectorate and had enjoyed fairly good relations with the Carthaginians, so the latter gladly accepted the appeal for military aid from the city’s ousted leader, Terillus. In fact, they took this as an opportunity to push the Greeks back from the Carthaginian sphere of influence on the island by launching a massive invasion force against the Akragans at Himera. The siege of Himera followed upon the heels of the initial Carthaginian victory under general Hamilcar. The Akragan tyrant Theron responded by appealing to his in-law, Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, for military aid. When Gelon’s large force arrived in the vicinity of Himera, they discovered thousands of Carthaginian troops foraging for food and supplies; the Syracusan cavalry harassed and captured many of them. Gelon, always a master intriguer, then sought some sort of advantage over the main force of Carthaginians, who greatly outnumbered his own troops. The solution soon presented itself through intercepted information from the city-state of Selinus, essentially an ally of the Carthaginians in all this; the Selinuntes, though Greeks, were expecting to send a contingent of cavalry to assist Hamilcar. Gelon hit upon the clever scheme of dispatching his own cavalry to Hamilcar, masquerading as Selinuntes. The plan worked: the Carthaginians allowed entry to the Syracusan troopers, who quickly attacked and killed Hamilcar himself and then set fire to the Carthaginian fleet in the harbor of Himera. Once Gelon’s scouts informed him of these successes, he launched the rest of his forces against the Carthaginian encampment. The ensuing Battle of Himera (480 BCE) witnessed tremendous loss of life on both sides, as each army exerted itself to the limit in order to achieve victory;

Politics and Warfare: Carthage, Wars with

as the news of Hamilcar’s death and the destruction of their ships became clear to the Carthaginians, however, their fighting spirit waned (at least, that was how the Greeks saw it). The Carthaginian army collapsed in general terms, though there were still groups of soldiers who attempted resistance from fortified positions; the Greek forces pursued and slaughtered large numbers of the enemy and forced the surviving resisters to surrender for lack of water. Many hundreds of others ended up enslaved by the Greeks. Those few Carthaginians who escaped managed to leave the island aboard a handful of intact ships, only to face a terrible storm at sea that destroyed most of them, leaving a tiny remnant to return home to Carthage with the disastrous news. Carthage paid off Gelon to leave unmolested the Phoenician colonies in Sicily, and he agreed (the sum was a hefty one). The Greek victory at Himera had made Syracuse the dominant power on the island, respected (and feared) even far away in mainland Greece; it also encouraged Gelon’s brothers, Hieron and Polyzalos, to engage in bitter and violent feuding over the new power he had established. Victory precipitated civil war, which precipitated massive political changes, including the fall of tyrants, but the position of Syracuse in all this, even as a new democracy, really did not much abate. Then came a local conflict between the expansionist polis Selinus and the Elymian city of Segesta. The latter eventually gained the assistance of the Carthaginians, with whom the Elymians had always had good relations. Carthaginian forces commanded by Hannibal, grandson of Hamilcar, smashed their way into Selinus, plundering, burning, and killing; they marched next on Himera and did much the same thing (409 BCE). Hannibal’s victories had sated the Carthaginian thirst for revenge on the Greeks, until the latter began raiding the Phoenician colonies for wealth to employ in their own internecine conflicts. Hannibal, therefore, returned from Carthage, together with his cousin Himilco, to crush Greek power on Sicily once and for all. They captured Akragas after a siege of eight months (406 BCE), and then Gela and Camarina. Syracuse stood in the way, now, under a charismatic leader named Dionysius. He held his ground, and the Carthaginians (encouraged by a severe outbreak of disease among the ranks) negotiated a peace, to their advantage, with Syracuse. Yet for Dionysius this was all temporary. He began almost immediately to strengthen Syracuse’s position vis-à-vis the other poleis of Sicily and to raise funds by any means necessary to build up his navy, his army, and his new artillery (that is, catapults) and siege equipment. Within eight years of the treaty with Carthage, Dionysius and his Greek forces (especially mercenaries whom he recruited from Sparta and across the Greek world) began their attack on the Phoenician colonies of western Sicily. His siege of Motya (397 BCE) ended in mass slaughter like that the Greek towns had suffered

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at the hands of the Carthaginians in the past. Carthaginian relief forces under Himilco returned to besiege Syracuse itself, but again suffered from a plague. This gave Dionysius a short-term advantage, but, despite his successes, the forces of his enemies kept up the fight. Finally, in 393 BCE, the opposing sides came to an agreement: Carthage would control the western portion of Sicily while Syracuse would dominate the eastern portion. This treaty did not entirely end hostilities between the two, as renewed warfare from 382 to 374 BCE, and again from 368 to 366 BCE reveals. Indeed, the Syracusans, led by new tyrants, Timoleon of Corinth and Agathocles of Thermae Himeraeae, reignited war with Carthage. Timoleon came ostensibly to protect Syracuse from Carthaginian intrusion in local political discord and emerged victorious (343–338 BCE). Agathocles, a soldier-of-fortune who had risen up from the lower class, sought glorious conquest and so launched a war against the Carthaginians (311–307 BCE) after having already seized Syracuse and dominated the Greeks of Sicily. His achievement was perhaps the greater of the two because he became the first Greek general to lead a Greek invasion force against Carthage itself. Still, even this had only mixed results. The Greek wars against the Carthaginians over and over ended in stalemate; neither side could attain complete control of Sicily or of the lucrative trade routes leading to and from the island. Nevertheless, the repeated conflicts tested and stretched the military capabilities of both cultures; the wars offered opportunities for aggrandizement not only to local power brokers but also to outside parties (like the Corinthians, Spartans, and even Athenians) who sought expansion of their influence or resources at the expense of others. In the end, leaders and soldiers across the Greek world, mercenaries who had served on the ground and others who had never been to Sicily (like Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great), learned much from the lessons of the Wars against Carthage. See also: Economics and Work: Piracy and Banditry; Trade; Housing and Community: Colonization; Politics and Warfare: Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Phalanx; Siege Technology; Tyrannies; Science and Technology: Exploration; Primary Documents: Herodotus on Gelon’s Refusal to Join the Greek Alliance (481 BCE) FURTHER READING Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Caven, B. 1990. Dionysius I: War-Lord of Sicily. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cerchiai, L., L. Jannelli, and F. Longo. 2002. The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Descoeudres, J.-P., ed. 1990. Greek Colonists and Native Populations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Politics and Warfare: Cavalry Hackett, J., ed. 1989. Warfare in the Ancient World. London: Sidgwick and Jackson. Kern, P. B. 1999. Ancient Siege Warfare. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lewis, S. 2009. Greek Tyranny. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Pritchett, W. K. 1971–1991. The Greek State at War. 5 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pugliese Carratelli, G., ed. 1996. The Western Greeks. London: Thames & Hudson. Van Wees, H., ed. 2000. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales.

CAVALRY Among the ancient Greeks, the use of horses to draw chariots in warfare goes back to Mycenaean times (c. 1700–1100 BCE), whereas the use of warhorses ridden by warriors seems to have been a development of the Archaic Period (c. 800– 490  BCE). By the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), some Greek communities therefore possessed long traditions of horsemanship and fighting on horseback. Greeks on the big island of Euboea and in the region of Thessaly in northern Greece had the greatest, and oldest, reputations as cavalrymen. The aristocrats of Chalcis, one of the principal city-states on Euboea, referred to themselves as Hippobotai, the “horse-raisers,” while their opposite numbers in the nearby rival community of Eretria were called Hippeis, the “horsemen.” The open spaces and good grazing land on the island made it ideal for horse culture, as was also true in Thessaly. In the latter, one would have found many expert breeders, as well as great competition in horse-breeding among communities (symbolized by competing brands, such as the ox head for Pharsalus, the axe for Pherae, the centaur for Larissa, and so on). Thessalian warhorses in general had the advantage of possessing some strong genetic material from the custom of trading and interbreeding with the herds of horses maintained on the steppes of Eastern Europe and even as far as central Asia by the “barbarian” Thracians and Scythians, the northern neighbors of the Greek populations who had their own marvelous traditions of horsemanship. Indeed, the Thracians regarded horses as beloved of the Sun god himself and hence symbols of power, physical and cosmic. The communities of central and southern Greece generally did not possess such traditions, even though their aristocratic families might have, so for them to raise a substantial cavalry force was a matter of state policy and sufficient funds. In the decade or so before the Peloponnesian War, for instance, Athens established a regular contingent of 1,000 cavalrymen (hippeis) and 200 mounted archers (hippotoxotai), much larger than the city’s previous, and long-standing, custom of only 300 horsemen. Cavalry service in Athens, as in many other city-states, had been a

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Interior of a terracotta drinking cup, or kylix, depicting a Persian cavalryman standing behind his horse, c. 510–500 BCE. This piece captures with just enough detail the ancient Greek appreciation of warhorses, strong and muscular, and quietly acknowledges the superior skill in horsemanship of the peoples of the ancient Near East. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Rogers Fund, 1906)

privilege, and a duty, of the aristocratic families, those who could afford to raise and train warhorses, and who had family traditions of doing so stretching far back into the past; they were called to serve by the commanders of the cavalry, the hipparchs. In the fifth century, though, the city-state of Athens called up cavalry troopers not just from the blue-blooded families but also from across the wealthiest members of the community, that is, wealthy young men in their twenties and especially thirties, and promised a state-funded food allowance (sitos) for every horse and rider, as well as a loan of money (katastasis) granted to help purchase the horse and generally ease costs to trooper and family. At the city’s expense, then, each warhorse was stabled and fed. Now, Athenian cavalry were recruited by a board of two hipparchs and ten phylarchs, the latter being commanders from each of the city-state’s tribal divisions (  phylai). The Council of 500 supervised the retirement of horsemen on grounds of physical inability and scrutinized the new recruits on the same grounds and on those of adequate wealth. The Council represented politically the interests of the ten tribes, each of which now contributed a unit to the overall cavalry.

Politics and Warfare: Cavalry

Use of cavalry in battle and attack formations varied by region and across time. The Spartan kings and other nobles, for instance, rode into battle like the heroes of Greek mythology, but then dismounted to fight alongside their hoplite comrades in a spirit of civic unity. At Syracuse in Sicily and Tarentum in southern Italy, cavalry in about the same numbers as at Athens was utilized in the local wars of aggrandizement, but riders would apparently dismount to throw their spears and then escape on horseback. The Thessalians, however, maintained themselves on horseback during battle, developing probably the most effective attack formation among the ancient Greeks, the rhombus. Perhaps invented by Jason of Pherae, the Thessalian tagos, or supreme commander, in the early fourth century BCE, the rhombus allowed Thessalian lancers to act as shock troops in any direction, piercing the lines of any opposing force. Of course, the Thessalians had greater numbers of horsemen at their disposal, and their traditions of races and what we might characterize as cowboy antics set them apart from the other Greeks. To the rest of Greece, the Thessalians were the proverbial unruly tough guys of the “wide-open spaces,” but clearly they had the discipline to make skillful and lethal use of the rhombus. Few Greek cavalrymen followed the Thessalian example; most armed themselves lightly with only javelins or bows, which meant they fought in rallies, throwing volleys of missiles before retreating. The typical formation they observed was the square, as was the case among the Athenians and the Boeotians. Yet, among the Boeotian communities, the Thebans deliberately picked up a few tricks from the Thessalians. Most famously, in the Battle of Leuctra (371 BCE), the Theban cavalry were critical to their city-state’s victory over the Peloponnesian forces led by the Spartans. The Spartan king Cleombrotus I had about 1,500 cavalry under his command, while the Theban commander Pelopidas had only about 1,000. Any inferiority in numbers, however, they made up for in their bravery and superior training. The Theban horsemen boldly confronted their counterparts in the opposing force, soon routed them, and, in fact, drove them behind the Spartan infantry lines; this made the Spartan left-wing units vulnerable to attack from behind and distracted, while the main Theban attack came at their right wing. The cavalry tradition among the Greeks hit its high point under the Macedonians who did more than any other Greek population to develop their cavalry resources. Their kings had always relied on horsemen as their main warriors, organizing them into wedge formations, like their Thracian and Scythian neighbors to the north. Like their Thessalian neighbors to the south, the Macedonian elites practiced lifelong training on horseback, developing habits of swiftness and of very precise, complex maneuvering, whether for harassment, protection, scouting, or attack. In the mid-fourth century BCE, King Philip II reorganized his horse warriors along Theban lines, but with his own twists: the Companions, or Hetairoi,

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as they were called, numbered some 3,000 elite troops each armed with helmet, breastplate, and xyston, or thrusting spear, about nine feet in length (compared to the typical Greek spear, the doru of about six feet). When the city-states of Thebes and Athens confronted the growing power of Macedon in the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE), Philip feigned retreat with his troops, luring the Athenians away from their allies, opening up a gap that his son, Alexander, exploited with the Companion Cavalry under his command, to surround and annihilate the elite unit of Thebes, the Sacred Band. Cavalry and infantry had come to be used in close coordination to achieve victory. Resistance to the Macedonians, especially to their famous horsemen wearing their signature cloaks and boots, became untenable. Alexander the Great relied on cavalry, consisting primarily of Macedonians and Thessalians, in his conquest of the Persian Empire. In the third century BCE, Macedonian horsemen added a large, round shield (probably introduced by King Pyrrhus of Epirus) to their traditional equipment, and, in the second century, King Antiochus III of Syria imitated his Parthian adversaries by developing kataphraktoi, troopers (and sometimes horses) covered in scale armor. This habit did not catch on beyond the Seleucid forces, however, and remained rather small even among them, as did the use of larger warhorses. Indeed, even the old tradition of Macedonian horsemanship declined over time, as it became too expensive a commitment to maintain an effective cavalry force in the big kingdoms of the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE); the Macedonian infantry phalanxes thus eclipsed the cavalry across the eastern Mediterranean territories. Cavalry forces continued to play a role in Greek border security and warfare as many states, including the new federal leagues of the Hellenistic Era, like the Aetolian League, recruited and maintained such units. Greek governments also turned to mercenaries, like the famous Campanian cavalry from southern Italy, whom they hired to fulfill the functions of military horsemanship when their own communities could not supply similar needs. Nevertheless, aside from those cavalry who fought under Alexander the Great in his conquest of the Middle East, the Greeks rarely could compete with or outmatch the best horsemen of their world, the Persians and their Parthian cousins; indeed, Alexander recruited thousands of them to serve on his campaigns. Moreover, despite the democratic impulses of the Greek world, their cavalry remained always a symbol of elitism. Even among the Athenians, despite the increase in its size and the addition of non-aristocrats to it, the cavalry remained a very conservative element in the political and social system. See also: Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Aristocracies; Arms and Armor; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Phalanx

Politics and Warfare: Citizenship FURTHER READING Anderson, J. K. 1961. Ancient Greek Horsemanship. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Bugh, G. R. 1988. The Horsemen of Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gaebel, R. E. 2002. Cavalry Operations in the Ancient Greek World. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Greenhalgh, P. A. L. 1973. Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spence, I. G. 1993. The Cavalry of Classical Greece: A Social and Military History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van Wees, H. 2004. Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities. London: Bristol Classical Press. Worley, L. J. 1994. Hippeis: The Cavalry of Ancient Greece. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.

CITIZENSHIP In the earliest Greek culture for which we have evidence, what we call the Mycenaean civilization (c. 1700–1100 BCE), the Greek populations apparently regarded themselves primarily as subjects of very powerful warlords, monarchs who ruled with virtually absolute authority. With the collapse of this civilization in the twelfth century BCE, the Greeks began to redefine themselves. By the eighth century BCE, many of them had developed a new identity, as citizens (  politai) of independent communities known as poleis. From that time onward, even when these city-states were absorbed into the Roman Empire, even when Roman citizenship was extended to them, Greeks who lived in such communities continued to regard themselves first and foremost as members of a particular polis, as possessing politeia, citizenship. The founding individuals and families of a particular polis established the original rules of citizenship for that polis and gave themselves citizenship. Succeeding generations of their descendants acquired the same citizenship as a hereditary legacy, sometimes with modification of the rules, often not. Individuals and families, especially the more affluent or powerful, preserved proud stories of their ancestral connections to the founding of their polis; these stories served as proof of legitimate citizenship. In addition, most poleis were small enough that every family in them was known to every other family there, which meant that they could vouch for one another’s politeia. In the few larger city-states where such familiarity was difficult to maintain in practice, local governments developed methods of record-keeping to ensure proper identification of individuals there as citizens. In Athens, where this sort of process is most well-known, citizen fathers presented their children (when in their late teens) to their phratry (a mutual aid society) and to their deme (neighborhood government, a subdivision of

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the polis) for official registration as citizens in their own right. Point of origin and kinship therefore determined one’s citizenship. The definition of citizenship usually also included ownership of property, that is, real estate; Greeks generally believed that someone without such a real stake in the community could not be counted on to defend and perpetuate the community. Landownership was not available to newcomers, though. In Sparta, for instance, the state gave every citizen an equal share of all the land, which could not be sold (except to fellow Spartans, and even then under restrictions). In Athens, land was purchasable only by Athenian citizens and heritable only among Athenian citizens, passed down through generations of them. Athens also had strict laws against permitting immigrants or any other outsiders to purchase or inherit Athenian land. In almost every polis, Greek citizenship was thus what moderns would call fiercely protectionist. In the Greek definition of citizenship, the expectation of defending the polis was as crucial as property ownership. In the early history of the poleis, the wealthiest members of each community took upon themselves this burden, but in the highly competitive atmosphere of the city-states, such aristocrats could not defend their community alone. As more and more men from each polis joined the armed forces to protect their homes and families, true citizen armies developed, and all citizen males came to be raised as citizen soldiers. Greeks thus developed a spirit of fierce patriotism in action. Citizenship among the Greeks also meant participation in politics and sometimes in the law courts; those men who owned land and fought on behalf of the polis had the privilege and the responsibility of serving in public capacities and voting for leaders and laws. The degree of direct involvement varied with the political structure of one’s polis. Only in one city-state, Sparta, did a monarchy operate, and that was only with much popular involvement; only in a few places did democracies develop in which most men not only voted but also held the majority of public offices (as magistrates, on governing councils, on juries). Most Greek communities functioned as aristocracies, where the majority of the citizens participated politically primarily as voters in general elections on specific occasions during the year (not much different than what takes place in most modern countries). Citizens in the Greek poleis typically referred to themselves as the de¯mos, the “people” of their community. Among their popularly approved laws, the most severe removed a citizen from full rights within the de¯mos, essentially creating a second-class of citizenship. In Sparta, for example, the hypermeiones, or “inferiors,” consisted of those who had failed to pass the agoˉge¯, the rigid system of indoctrination, or to contribute to their barracks, or syssitia (where Spartan male citizens lived), both requirements of full politeia there. In Athens, someone might be branded with atimia, or “disgrace,” if he committed certain crimes against the community. Atimia constituted a formal shunning by his peers that removed him

Politics and Warfare: Citizenship

from almost all of the privileges of membership in the de¯mos. The atimos, surprisingly, could retain his land, but he could not participate in any public capacity, which meant that he could not vote, hold office, or defend himself in court. Greek citizens further reinforced their sense of membership by treating others as complete outsiders. Slaves, for example, whether of Greek ancestry or not, in whatever occupation, had no citizenship rights, except as freed slaves in a very few city-states and in a very few cases where such freedmen had done something noteworthy for the citizens. Citizens permitted, and sometimes demanded, that noncitizens in their midst help defend the city-state and provide their talents, wealth, and loyalty to the community, but such resident aliens remained just that, aliens, not citizens, only rarely receiving a grant of citizenship from their adopted polis. Finally, Greek communities recognized women as citizens (such as when the Athenians insisted that a true citizen had both a citizen father and a citizen mother) and included them in the many aspects of life (such as mutual aid, involvement in religious ceremonies, protections under the law, and so on) associated with being a citizen. Still, theirs was only a partial form of citizenship, since women were excluded from the political roles and from the public service that most defined politeia. Only in Late Classical and Hellenistic times did a handful of wealthy and powerful women receive full enfranchisement as citizens, usually as a form of honor in gratitude for great beneficence to their communities. The ancient Greeks may have recognized one another collectively as one culture (they would have used the term Helle¯nes), but citizenship in a particular polis meant very much more to them. Moreover, the Greeks in poleis developed many ways of categorizing citizens, further defining who belonged among the “insiders” and who among the “outsiders” of their societies. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Landownership; Slavery, Private; Slavery, Public; Trade; Family and Gender: Inheritance; Marriage; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Assemblies; City-States; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Justice and Punishment; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status FURTHER READING Adkins, A. W. H. 1960. Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Adkins, A. W. H. 1972. Moral Values and Political Behavior in Ancient Greece. New York: W. W. Norton. Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cartledge, P. 2003. The Spartans. New York: Random House/Vintage Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Cartledge, P. 2009. Political Thought in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Christ, M. 2006. The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jeffrey, L. H. 1976. Archaic Greece: The City-States c.700–500 B.C. London: Methuen. Liddel, P. 2007. Civic Obligation and Individual Liberty in Ancient Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge. Murray, O., and S. Price, eds. 1990. The Greek City from Homer to Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sealey, R.1976. History of the Greek City-States: 700–338 BC. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sinclair, R. K. 1988. Democracy and Participation in Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vlassopoulos, K. 2007. Unthinking the Greek Polis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walbank, F. W. 1992. The Hellenistic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

CITY-STATES Although not all ancient Greeks lived in city-states, the majority of them did for many centuries, and the city-state, or polis, became essential in the identity of Greek individuals and the Greek culture overall. They may have recognized one another collectively as Greeks (they would have used the term Helle¯nes), but their citizenship in a polis meant much more to them. When the famous philosopher Aristotle asserted that humans were by nature political animals, he meant they should live in a city-state, a polis, in order to attain their highest potential. Archaeological research has long suggested that the Greeks did not invent the city-state as a form of political and societal organization. Rather, they apparently modeled their poleis on the city-states of the Ancient Near East, especially the Phoenician communities, with which the Greeks carried on brisk, highly influential trade relations. Among the Phoenicians and their neighbors, the Greeks would have found centers of agriculture, trade, and artisanship inhabited by populations that possessed a strong sense of communal identity and of ties to their place of origin. The Greek poleis came to display all these traits as well. Indeed, each Greek community developed perhaps an even stronger uniqueness compared to their counterparts in the Near East, represented in their heroic foundation legends and resulting from much more social and cultural homogeneity within the relatively small Greek populations.

Politics and Warfare: City-States

Over the course of their long history, the Greeks established some 1,500 citystates. Not all of them developed from the same causes, even though certain forces, like population growth, religious commonalities, solidarity in defense of territory, and so on, factored into many cases. They also varied widely in appearance, depending on their topography and resources, and the customs of the Greeks who lived there, though most had some sort of civic center or main marketplace (agora), as well as some sort of sacred space, often in the form of an acropolis, an elevated plateau, mesa, or hill, upon which the people built their temples to the gods. Still, these urban elements can mislead: most poleis were not primarily inhabited by city-dwellers (even in Athens, only about one-third of the population lived downtown) and did not consist of city-space, but were largely rural territories inhabited mostly by farmers and shepherds. The idea of polis did not denote a particular physical arrangement on a city-plan, but instead connoted a community, a sort of big club, and its concerted efforts. Most city-states remained quite small in terms of territory and population throughout their history; their most important source of livelihood, small-scale subsistence agriculture, as well as other limitations imposed upon them by the geography of Greece, ensured this. Only a few grew beyond such limits, such as Corinth, Syracuse, Sparta, and, most famously, Athens, and this can be explained by successes in either military expansion against neighbors, remarkable prosperity from long-distance trade, successes in subjecting other labor forces to their own (that is, slavery), or all of the above. Individual Greeks strove for self-sufficiency, as they did in their family units. Greek city-states strove for a similar self-sufficiency, autonomy and freedom. This meant that anytime one traveled from one polis to another, one was entering a different country. One would have found Greeks living according to local customs different from one’s own, following local laws different from one’s own, guarded by a local political system separate from one’s own, and protecting themselves with local military forces perhaps even hostile to one’s own. One would also have found that the local residents jealously guarded their membership in the city-state, their politeia, or citizenship. Fellow citizens believed in their right to interfere in one another’s affairs because their membership in the polis was built on protections as well as responsibilities mutually agreed upon. At the same time that so many poleis praised freedom, they did not respect, condone, or permit free-wheeling, “rugged individualism” as modern people understand it; such behavior they associated with tyrants, like the Persian king Xerxes. Greek citizens sought freedom within community rather than freedom from communal restraints; they strove for eunomia (harmony of customs) and isonomia (equality before the law), elevating the common laws and customs above themselves as the ultimate arbiter (even if still ruled by a king or an oligarchy in a particular city-state).

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Greek philosophy and especially Greek religion further stressed the ideals of moderation and restraint and the avoidance of seeking one’s own self-interest. In fact, Greeks regarded each polis not as an association of individuals but as essentially an association of the families, the oikoi, who founded it; the polis as a whole therefore had the responsibility of protecting and promoting those families in particular ways, not necessarily the individual’s goals. In most poleis, this meant that foreigners were welcome only as travelers or merchants passing through; in very few city-states could an outsider, even a Greek outsider, hope to settle down peacefully as a resident alien, or metic, and in even fewer city-states could one hold out any hope of one day becoming a citizen of one’s new home. Some Greeks, most famously Greek philosophers and sophists, looked beyond the parochialism of the city-states; their studies and their travels inculcated in them a broader understanding of the similarities across poleis, leading them away from the typical xenophobia prevalent across the Greek world; as Democritus of Abdera put it, “to the wise man, the whole world is open; the good person has the entire world for his polis.” That is, he had a cosmopolitan outlook (from the Greek words cosmos, “world” or “universe,” and polis). Most Greek city-states did not buy into this perspective. Instead, their citizens fiercely competed with those of other poleis over territory, resources (especially farm land), access to trade routes, and simply over power. As a result, citizens and resident aliens could expect to find themselves caught up in frequent wars against rival city-states, singly or in temporary coalitions. The virtue of cooperation among nations, so highly valued today, was certainly not prized by most poleis, who, instead, might wage conflicts with one another year after year even for decades. Their “national” pride and sense of wounded honor requiring retribution ran deep and lasted across the generations. The exception came in the form of federal leagues, during the fifth and especially during the fourth and third centuries BCE. These permanent coalitions of states (examples include the Chalcidian League in northern Greece, the Aetolian League in north-central Greece, the Achaean League in the northern Peloponnesus, and the Rhodian League on the island of Rhodes), unlike the hegemonic examples from the past (like the Peloponnesian League or Delian League, or even the Boeotian League), indeed recognized the benefits of long-term cooperation, and of shared citizenship, among their members. They did not, however, discard the traditional Greek competitiveness between their enlarged community and others outside their leagues, nor did they promote any sort of Panhellenic vision. In a sense, the leagues functioned as super-poleis, with some new twists on the old model. Even when the Macedonians under Philip II, Alexander the Great, and their successors dominated the world of the ancient Greeks, or when the Roman Empire absorbed it, the city-states (and the federal leagues) still sought to have their autonomy

Politics and Warfare: Civil War

recognized. Hellenistic monarchs and the Romans obliged, as far as they deemed practical, since they realized how they could win over Greek support with promises of “freedom” (even specious ones) to the individual city-states. Indeed, the Hellenistic rulers founded new poleis and supported old ones, while the obsession of the Greek communities with their autonomy made them virtually incapable of successful resistance to Roman encroachment; the Greeks never gathered together as a whole to avert the Roman menace. Furthermore, the Romans knew that Athenians, Spartans, Macedonians, and even Persians, had pledged themselves at one time or another in the past to the “defense of Greek freedom”; why couldn’t the Romans now do the same? The independent spirit of the Greek city-states—bred by relative isolation and strong communal bonds—unleashed tremendous cultural energies in the service of “national” pride. The city-states also generated significantly detrimental obstacles to peace, cooperation, and, in the end, the independence of Greece as a whole. See also: Economics and Work: Currency; Landownership; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Taxation; Trade; Housing and Community: Colonization; Country Life; Fortifications; Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Assemblies; Citizenship; Councils; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Justice and Punishment; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Public Officials; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status FURTHER READING Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jeffrey, L. H. 1976. Archaic Greece: The City-States c.700–500 B.C. London: Methuen. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge. Murray, O., and S. Price, eds. 1990. The Greek City from Homer to Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sealey, R.1976. History of the Greek City-States: 700–338 BC. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Vlassopoulos, K. 2007. Unthinking the Greek Polis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walbank, F. W. 1992. The Hellenistic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

CIVIL WAR Civil strife, or stasis, as they called it (from “taking a stance”), was nothing new to the ancient Greeks. They recorded civil wars within their communities as far back

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as the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE); such events, typically had the coloring of a social revolution or class struggle. In the Classical Period (490–323 BCE), internal strife over more political agendas, especially foreign policy, came to prominence. Mixed in with international conflict, such civil wars had quite devastating effects; mixed in with palace intrigues, as in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), civil war helped bring down vast realms. The Archaic Period in Greek history witnessed a tremendous movement of Greeks from their mother cities to colonies. Even though the motives for such emigration varied greatly, one very common cause seems to have been civil strife back home. For example, exiles from the northern Peloponnesus made their way to southern Italy in the late eighth century BCE and founded the colony of Sybaris. Stasis followed them there, however, as the lower classes rose up against the infamously wealthy oligarchy of the city in the late sixth century; the elite of that oligarchy lost their possessions and suffered exile. They fled to neighboring Croton; winning over its leaders to their plight ushered in war between the two communities that brought about the total destruction of Sybaris. In the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, the city-state of Megara experienced considerable internal discord, partly recorded by Theognis, one of the most famous Greek poets. He described his polis as ready to “give birth” to a stasis because of the insolence and corruption among the lower classes and those who posed as their leaders, who, according to the clearly partisan poet, sought power and benefits for themselves at the expense of stability, social order, and righteousness. His words found echoes in the attitudes of many aristocrats of the Greek world in his time and afterward. Indeed, civil discord and civil war brought strong moralizing to the political and social discourse of all competing Greek factions, who regarded themselves as the “righteous” and their opponents as the “evil ones.” The Classical Age did not see an end to such attitudes or to stasis. Perhaps the most famous example in Greek literature involved the city-states of Epidamnus and Corcyra. The former, founded as a joint colony by Corinth and Corcyra in the late seventh century BCE, descended into civil war nearly two centuries later when the working people there rose up in revolution against the wealthy ruling elite and cast the latter out. The oligarchic exiles then turned to the Illyrian neighbors of Epidamnus for aid in laying siege to their own city, while the “rebels” who had “taken over” sought and received support from Corinth in hopes of maintaining their new power. Corcyra also intervened in this stasis, on the side of the exiled elite, and the ensuing naval war between Corinth and Corcyra concluded with the latter’s victory and, therefore, the reinstatement of the Epidamnian oligarchy. That did not end matters, however. Two years later, Corcyra allied itself to Athens to gain the protection of the Athenian navy against further troubles with Corinth. At first, this seemed a good idea, until the Corcyraeans began to argue

Politics and Warfare: Civil War

among themselves between the merits of joining with Athens or restoring a close relationship with Corinth. Such arguments precipitated violent strife inside Corcyra (427 BCE), just eight years after the troubles in Epidamnus. Private hatreds and self-interested machinations were unleashed, as well as political disagreements. In the end, the friends of Athens succeeded in Corcyra’s civil war (thanks in part to Athenian military aid), but many lives were lost and much property destroyed, including the Corcyraean fleet. Indeed, the so-called democratic faction in Corcyra engaged in vicious reprisals against its opponents, atrocities even against those who had sought sanctuary in sacred places. From the Athenian perspective, the value of Corcyra as an ally plummeted; its people, its society, and its resources were too weakened and depleted to be of any help to Athens in its struggles with the Peloponnesian League. The Athenians suffered from stasis numerous times themselves in the course of their history. One example comes from the last phase of the Peloponnesian War. They had recently launched a disastrous expedition into Sicily; in its wake, many Athenians lost confidence in the wisdom and decision-making process of their democratic system. Such citizens were open to the idea of placing power into the hands of an oligarchy, which they assumed would act more effectively and could negotiate peace with the Spartans; there had been no oligarchy in Athens since the civil war that had established the democracy nearly a century earlier. When the exiled Athenian officer Alcibiades sent word to several disaffected commanders in the Athenian fleet that the Persian Empire would aid Athens against its Greek rivals if the city turned to oligarchy (and allied with Persia), Pisander, one of these commanders, returned to the city (411 BCE) and conspired with others to assassinate key democratic opponents and to intimidate the Council of 500 and the Assembly into restricting voting rights and office-holding to only the 5,000 wealthiest citizens (what Pisander termed a “moderate democracy”); soon, the Assembly handed over power to an emergency commission of five men under Theramenes, which worked with a reduced Council of 400, again all from the wealthiest families. Meanwhile, Thrasybulus and other commanders in the Athenian fleet opposed the radical shift to oligarchy; their victories (in conjunction with Alcibiades, who had decided to join their side now) over Peloponnesian forces and the failure of the oligarchy’s negotiations with the Spartans weakened the position of the oligarchy and restored Athenian confidence in those leaders who favored democracy. By summer of the following year, the oligarchy crumbled and full democratic government was restored. But the civil strife unleashed repeated itself with the Spartan victory over Athens in 404 BCE. The Spartans had proceeded to assist certain Athenians in overthrowing the democracy and installing themselves as a ruling oligarchy, which later acquired the nickname of “Thirty Tyrants.” They sought to “purify the city

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of the unjust” and “restore virtue” in the wake of military defeats they blamed on the democratic government. Enacting new laws and revising old ones, the Thirty Tyrants confiscated land from exiled opponents, executed some 1,500 “dissidents,” closed the law courts, restricted voting to the 3,000 wealthiest citizens, and filled official posts with their own cronies. Exiled Athenians, especially those who supported the democracy, soon challenged the authority of the Thirty. When the naval commander Thrasybulus and his comrades invaded the main harbor district of Athens (403 BCE), the Thirty responded with force. Civil war gripped the city, producing much bloodshed and chaos; many of the Thirty, including prominent leaders like Critias, fell in the street fighting. Spartan troops eventually intervened and forced an armistice between the two Athenian factions. The surviving members of the Thirty and their supporters withdrew under Spartan protection; a few months later, the restored Athenian democracy decreed a general amnesty toward all those involved on either side, a rather unusual move. In Hellenistic times, the growth of large states, built upon the rule of royal dynasties, did not reduce the threat of stasis but, in fact, increased that threat. Civil war plagued the extensive Seleucid Empire, for example, and contributed significantly to its collapse. Two years into his reign, the nine-year-old ruler Antiochus V (r.164–162 BCE) was executed by his rival, his twenty-five-year-old cousin Demetrius (r.162–150). A man named Alexander Balas (r.150–145) challenged Demetrius for the throne almost a decade later, claiming to be the brother of Antiochus V. Demetrius’ death in battle did not assure Balas of the throne because his rival’s son, Demetrius II, rose up against him, eventually defeating him (Balas was soon after assassinated). Then Demetrius II (r.145–125) and his brother Antiochus VII (r.138–129) faced a challenge from the powerful faction that supported Balas’s son Antiochus VI as true king. Balas’ wife, Cleopatra Thea, attempted to promote her son by marrying each of her husband’s rivals in turn. Eventually, after losing that son, she arranged the assassination of Demetrius II and eliminated her second son by him in favor of her favorite third son; he later turned on her, poisoning his mother to death. Such court intrigues only exacerbated the civil strife occurring across what was left of the crumbling imperial territories. Cleopatra’s surviving sons, Antiochus VIII and Antiochus IX, forced one another to partition the remainder of the realm (116 BCE). When both brothers perished at the hands of assassins (96 BCE), the door opened to nearly three decades of further civil war among the last generation of Seleucid cousins; rebellions among their subject populations, as well as the expansionism of neighboring powers, threatened them as well, until the Romans intervened and absorbed the little remnant of the empire, the territory of Syria, into their own power.

Politics and Warfare: Civil War

Similarly, the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt experienced more than its fair share of civil strife. Again, the cause was primarily dynastic intrigue. For instance, the royal brothers, Ptolemy VI (r.180–145 BCE) and Ptolemy VIII vied for control of the realm until the Roman senator Popilius Laenas arrived (168 BCE) to divide the territories between them, Egypt and Cyprus to the former, Cyrene to the latter. On his brother’s death (145), Ptolemy VIII regained the entire realm, but two of his sons, Ptolemy IX (r.116–81) and Ptolemy X (r.110–88) struggled over the Egyptian throne for twenty years. Only the intervention of powerful Roman forces secured Egypt for Ptolemy IX’s son Ptolemy XII (r.81–51), and then his children, especially Cleopatra VII (r.51–30) and Ptolemy XIII (r.51–47) quarreled over it; again, resolution was only achieved by Roman intervention, to the eventual detriment of the Ptolemy family and to the independence of Greek Egypt. Civil war happened frequently in the Greek world; in the centuries between 800 BCE and 300 BCE, there were over 250 instances of stasis in over 100 poleis. Wars with foreign powers, or the intervention of those powers directly in local strife, only exacerbated the destructiveness of feuding Greek factions. Moreover, as the historian Thucydides keenly pointed out, even the very terms of Greek discourse, and the definitions of crucial Greek values, such as justice and the good, disintegrated in the midst of stasis, politically charged and transformed by winners and losers to suit their own interests in utter disregard for truth. See also: Arts: History; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Housing and Community: Colonization; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Citizenship; Democracies; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Primary Documents: Thucydides on the Corcyraean Revolution (427 BCE) FURTHER READING Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Christ, M. 2006. The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press. Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. New York: Arno Press. De St. Croix, G. E. M. 1981. The Class Struggle in Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Graham, A. J. 1983. Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece. 2nd ed. Chicago: Ares. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jeffrey, L. H. 1976. Archaic Greece: The City-States c.700–500 B.C. London: Methuen. Lewis, S. 2009. Greek Tyranny. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

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COUNCILS For most people of the ancient Greek world, government meant first and foremost a governing council, or boule¯. The tradition was an old one to rely on a group of trusted leaders to steer the course of the community. Over time, such councils rose and fell, gaining and losing powers, typically caught in a struggle between oneman rule, on the one side, and popular rule, on the other. In the oldest Greek civilization, that which scholars call Mycenaean (c. 1700– 1100 BCE), there is little evidence of anything like a governing council, though it is probable that each Mycenaean king (wanax) did consult with his warriors and his administrators, the men who helped him keep his realm together and functioning smoothly. Following the collapse of Mycenaean culture, particularly wealthy and wellconnected leaders of the Greek communities set themselves up as kings (now called basileus), but they were still just one member of the new aristocracy, with limited authority over the other community leaders, and the latter expected to be consulted frequently by the king for their approval of his decisions. As a result, councils of elders developed in the various Greek states, their members chosen from the upper social echelons. A good example is provided by ancient Sparta. There, the members of the council known as the gerousia consisted of just twenty-eight men (out of a total adult male population of at least 9,000), all over the age of sixty; they might have been elected by the citizen soldiers of the city-state, but they then served for life. Seated alongside the elders, as equal members of the council, were the two kings of Sparta, who presided over meetings. Like many such councils in the Greek world, the gerousia handled judicial matters as one of its primary concerns; at Sparta, this meant trying cases of criminal behavior. Then, when the men of Sparta gathered as a legislative assembly, the gerousia acted as its steering committee, providing the motions for the assembly to accept or reject. Yet the council ultimately had the power to override the assembly’s vote, which meant that a great deal of authority lay in the hands of the elders. When the Spartans gained hegemony over the Athenians in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, they not only installed their own officials as governors in some of the Greek communities now under their control, but they also assisted in

Politics and Warfare: Councils

(and insisted on) the establishment of ruling councils of ten local men (decarchies) with pro-Spartan sympathies in each of those communities. In other words, they exported a version of their own decision-making system, indeed, an even more restricted and conservative version of that system. Most of the Greek states operated along lines similar to Sparta’s, in the sense of having a stronger ruling council than popular assembly. In a few, the roles were reversed over time, and Athens provides the best and most detailed example of this. The aristocrats of Athens ousted their king in the seventh century BCE, assuming control of the city’s destiny by establishing the leading figures among themselves as the Council of the Areopagus; the Areopagites regarded themselves as “the guardians of the laws and the state” and, like the Spartan gerousia, they exercised jurisdiction over particular crimes (that is, arson, sacrilege, homicide, offenses against the state, and official misconduct). The Areopagus probably selected (perhaps through some sort of interview process) the first archons of Athens, a board of annual officials who would assume the duties of the former kings. Members of the Areopagus, like those of the gerousia, served for life; to maintain its size (somewhere around 150 members), retired archons became automatic members of the Areopagus. Officials and council therefore came from the same upper echelons of Athenian society and often shared the same political agendas. The wide powers of the Areopagus and the closed system it represented generated so much social tension in Athens that the council later had to concede some of its decision-making authority to the common people. The reform was the work of one of the Areopagites, Solon, who seems to have established the Assembly (ekkle¯sia) of all Athenian adult males to enact laws (based on the proposals of the archons and Areopagus), to elect officials, and to hear appeals against the actions of the upper echelons. The Areopagus lost direct control over the selection of magistrates, but it still held them accountable (through an investigative process called euthynai); it seemingly lost legislative authority, but retained the right of full veto over the decisions of the Assembly; and the Areopagus remained the “supreme court” of the land. Further losses were ahead, however. In the late sixth century BCE, the reformer Cleisthenes weakened the Areopagus by creating another, parallel boule¯ with the primary function of preparing the agenda and legislative proposals for the Assembly. Later decisions of the Assembly further empowered this Council of 500, so that by the end of the fifth century BCE, it had the authority to control the state’s finances, to supervise public works, foreign affairs, the army and navy, to award honors and prizes, and to oversee the archons and other public officials. Along the way, the 500 had also placed individual Areopagites on trial and had assumed oversight of the Areopagus itself through subcommittees; in addition, the new boule¯, together with several of the archons, had been given the task of examining the

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qualifications of all candidates for public office (the dokimasia), something which used to fall within the purview of the Areopagus. The Council of 500 consisted not just of men from the aristocracy, but of any men age thirty and above from the top three property classes of the city. Indeed, these men were selected annually by a complex lottery and scrutiny process (which allowed them to serve only twice in their lifetime) to yield a cross-section of the citizenry, and they met every day, except holidays, in the downtown heart (agora) of Athens. By the middle of the fifth century BCE, members of the 500 (known as bouleuetai) received one or two drachmas per day as an allowance (not a salary) to ease the burden of having to serve the community every day for an entire year. For a month at a time, a group of fifty councilors (called the prytaneis or prytany), chosen by lot, presided over the sessions of the 500; prytaneis were themselves divided into three groups, each group functioning for one day at a time as the steering committee, the rotation determined by lot (in an effort to prevent corruption or the imposition of a political agenda). Each steering committee selected from among themselves, again by lot, a daily director or “mayor for a day” (epistate¯s), who held the state seal and other official paraphernalia, including literally the keys to the city (so that they could lock its gates in case of emergencies). The prytaneis convened the full Council of 500, as well as the ekkle¯sia, and could always be found at the Prytaneum or Tholos, near the Bouleuterion in the agora. In the development of permanent coalition states, the Greeks merged traditions taken from their temporary military alliances as well as from their local city councils. In the Boeotian League, for example, the communities of central Greece joined together in eleven voting blocks, each block sending sixty annual representatives to a league council (synedrion), which had authority to address concerns common to all member states. Meanwhile, each member state retained a governing council of its own, which had to approve the policies devised by the synedrion. The nearby Aetolian League followed a similar pattern, having a league Council of 1,000, chosen according to proportional representation based on population, steered by a committee of thirty (apokle¯toi), while, in southern Greece, the Achaean League also had its common council (synodos). All these federal councils apparently drew from the well-to-do in their regions, rather than embracing the wide-ranging membership of the Athenian model. In some Greek communities, then, only a handful of citizens participated in the critical functions of their governing council; in others, perhaps as many as twothirds of the eligible citizens did so. In some places, the assemblies had little say in what they received from their councils to vote upon; in others, the council presented the issues with little of its own position, allowing the voters to create their own legislation to address the issues. The behavior, as well as the composition, of

Politics and Warfare: Democracies

councils in the Greek world spoke to the oligarchic or democratic leanings of each particular community. See also: Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Assemblies; Athenian Constitution; Civil War; Democracies; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Public Officials; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies FURTHER READING Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carlsson, S. 2010. Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence, and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Cartledge, P. 2003. The Spartans. New York: Random House/Vintage Press. Hansen, M. H. 1991. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Larsen, J. A. O. 1966. Representative Government in Greek and Roman History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge. Rhodes, P. J. 1972. The Athenian Boule. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robinson, E. 2011. Democracy Beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek Classical Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowe, C., and M. Schofield, eds. 2000. The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sinclair, T. A. 1952. A History of Greek Political Thought. London and New York: Routledge.

DEMOCRACIES Since so much of modern attention focuses on the culture and politics of ancient Athens, the most famous of ancient democracies and the most radical in form, many today wrongly assume that all the communities of ancient Greece were organized as democracies. In fact, however, out of the thousand or more ancient Greek citystates known to us, fewer than 2 percent had long-term, homegrown democratic traditions. Others adopted democratic government in the course of their histories as a result of foreign influence (especially Athenian), in many cases still for relatively short periods of time. Moreover, many Greeks came to regard their systems of governance as democratic even if the role of most citizens was minimal, as long as those systems were neither dictatorial nor oligarchic. In other words, democracy

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in the world of the ancient Greeks consisted of a range of constitutional forms. In the end, full involvement of everyday people in the decisions of government was, therefore, the exception in ancient Greece rather than the rule. The historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who immigrated to Athens in the last third of the fifth century BCE, provides the earliest recorded use of the word de¯mokratia (in Greek, “rule by the people”) and truly popularized the idea in his Histories, our principal account of the Persian Wars, in which the Athenian democracy plays the role of heroic savior of Greece. Athens certainly stood out among the democracies of Greece as evidently the first of its kind (the process of transformation from aristocratic to democratic government having begun with the reformer Solon in the early sixth century BCE). Furthermore, by the time of Herodotus, a series of internal crises and political reforms had turned Athens into the most radical, that is, the most direct democracy anywhere in the Greek world. Ultimate legislative authority had come to be vested in an assembly of citizen voters (ekkle¯sia) rather than a council of elite citizens; a Council of 500 (boule¯) chosen by lottery represented a cross-section of the citizen body, preparing the agenda for the assembly, and handling many other important matters of state. Citizen voters had come to serve on juries (dikaste¯ria) with authority over almost all legal cases involving their peers. Finally, executive actions had come to be the responsibility of committees of officials, rather than single individuals, membership on such committees being attained through a form of lottery rather than election (which meant that just about any citizen might be called upon to serve as a magistrate). Ultimate oversight of all elements of the political system came to rest in the hands of the ekkle¯sia. Several other Greek city-states built democratic systems on their own. Next to Athens, for example, we know most about the homegrown democracy of Argos. Indeed, the Athenian tragedian, Aeschylus, set his play the Suppliants (c. 465 BCE) in a monarchic Argos that had a strong democratic ethos. The Argives experimented with democratic forms of government perhaps as far back as the sixth century BCE, local tradition recording a popular revolution that overthrew their last king in that period. Certainly in the fifth century and for most of the fourth, Argos had a strong democracy. The catalyst for its creation had been evidently a terrible defeat at the hands of the expansionist Spartans (with whom the Argives had found themselves locked in increasing tension and competition) in the late sixth or early fifth century BCE; afterward, the previously second-class members of the population demanded from the aristocratic leadership a greater say in decision-making for the entire community. By the middle of the fifth century, reorganization of the tribes (voting associations) and the phratries (citizens’ mutual aid clubs), as well as the entrenchment of a general assembly of voters and some form of ostracism (a means of exiling undesirable leaders), clearly indicate the presence of a solid democratic structure in

Politics and Warfare: Democracies

Argos. Near the agora, or downtown heart of the city, the assembly (called aliaia) met at least once a month in an unusual sort of theater with straight seating (which could comfortably accommodate perhaps 3,000 men, with even further standingroom space); inscriptions confirm the accounts of Greek authors regarding the authority of the aliaia to make sovereign decrees, to appoint special magistrates, and to oversee major government business and the conduct of officials. These powers parallel those exercised by the Athenian ekkle¯sia. Argive officials (including the basileus, by whose term years were dated, treasurers, generals, and especially the artunai, likely the chief magistrates) typically held office for six months (the ideal term according to the philosopher Aristotle and the Hellenistic democracies that existed after his time); whether they were elected or chosen by lottery cannot be determined. The same mystery applies to the council (bola), which met in the agora, and to the Eighty, a group of officials with significant judicial and financial duties. Evidence suggests these bodies had some role in the preparation of materials for the assembly’s consideration. Despite similarities between Argos and Athens, one must remember that not all democracies were created equal in the Greek world. At Athens, even the poorest citizens exerted considerable sway through their votes and were tremendously interested and involved in the day-to-day political debates of their radical democracy; at Argos, voting appears to have remained a restricted privilege of citizens who owned a certain amount of property (that is, real estate). In other words, the de¯mos or “people” who “ruled” the state varied according to the definition of who constituted the de¯mos in the first place. Their close relationship with Athens, to whom the Argives repeatedly turned for various forms of support in their long-lingering conflict against Sparta, may have encouraged them to pursue certain political reforms. Other states had much less say in the matter. By the time of Herodotus, Athens, as leader of an international Greek military coalition (the so-called Delian League or Athenian Empire), exerted considerable influence, and, in fact, deliberate pressure, upon the communities in that coalition to adopt its style of democracy (or at least something approximating it). At the height of its military power in the second half of the fifth century BCE, it could pretty freely impose democratic forms of government upon its “subjects” (Erythrae and Samos, for example). This might seem contradictory in terms of the principles of democracy, especially the principle of freedom, but that mattered little to the Athenians. They sought to replicate governments like their own in an effort to reduce the number of aristocratic or oligarchic regimes among their subject allies; the Athenians believed that democratic governments would have more sympathy with their own political and strategic objectives than would any other form of government, which might lean instead toward Sparta, their chief adversary (which represented, in their minds, both monarchy and oligarchy).

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Ironically, another famous example of Greek democracy, Taras, better known as Tarentum in southern Italy, was a former colony of Sparta. The aristocracy there had suffered horrible losses in a war against the native peoples of the region (c. 473 BCE), encouraging an uprising of the Tarentine commoners that led to establishment of a democratic government. The voters selected some of their officials through election (like the seven-times general Archytas, famous Pythagorean philosopher as well as statesman) and some by means of lottery, imposing term limits and exercising sovereignty; indeed, the Tarentine democracy even redistributed a certain proportion of property and wealth from the elite to the poor, perhaps the result of strong philosophical influences, perhaps a matter of sheer practicality. In the third century BCE, the Romans despised Tarentum largely because of its strong democratic tradition, which had stood the test of time despite repeated military setbacks. Democracy seems to have been more concentrated among the Greek colonies in southern Italy and Sicily than elsewhere in the Greek world, perhaps because of the greater presence of tyrants tempting overthrow by popular revolution. For instance, at Akragas on the southwestern coast of Sicily, the expulsion of Thrasydeus (c. 474 BCE), last in a line of tyrants stretching back to the sixth century, led to aristocratic rule (the oligarchy of the Thousand) only briefly before a movement among the commoners (c. 470 BCE) established a (still rather plutocratic) democracy. Once again, a Greek philosopher, the cosmologist Empedocles, played a crucial role in these developments. The Athenian assumption or hope about democracies being friendlier toward one another than other sorts of government did not hold true generally. Case in point was the long-standing Athenian rivalry with Syracuse, a Corinthian colony in southeastern Sicily. Athenian military forces, at the fervent insistence of their own democratic government, attempted twice in the fifth century to conquer Syracuse, failing disastrously in the second attempt. Ruled by a dynasty of fifth-century tyrants until the fall of Thrasybulus (c. 466 BCE), Syracuse had then experienced a period of violent stasis (civil strife) between the “old” citizens (formerly disenfranchised or exiled by the tyrants) and the “new” citizens (populations relocated to Syracuse from elsewhere in Sicily, new immigrants from Greece, etc.). The “old” faction had won (461 BCE) but had established a broad oligarchy that made compromises in terms of landownership and other economic concerns with the “new” faction. Out of this developed an assembly of voters, a council, and a board of elected generals, and briefly a custom of petalismos (f ive-year exile of undesirable leaders, using olive leaves as ballots). We cannot say for certain who could attend the assembly, nor how often it met; the council, unlike the Athenian boule¯, did not represent a cross-section of the Syracusan territory and seems to have been superseded by magistrates with

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special powers, like the generals, who appear to have run the assembly meetings with a firm hand. There was no system of selecting officials by lottery (until after the reforms of Diocles in 412 BCE), nor was their pay for holding public office (as at Athens). Yet the de¯mos of Syracuse eventually acquired the final say on its laws, policies, and leaders; the assembly was prone to volatile and vindictive decisions and the scene of vivacious debates between popular demagogues (like Hermocrates and Athenagoras). Frequent restlessness of factions characterized popular politics and seems to have fueled remarkable developments in history, poetry, theater, rhetoric, and the fine arts at Syracuse. Despite differences, Greek democracies shared in common many challenges to their survival. The Argive democracy, for example, suspected and faced several oligarchic coups, and handled them with severity. The Syracusans lost their democracy with the rise of a new tyrant among them, Dionysius I, who pledged to protect them against Carthaginian threats. Athenian opponents of their own democratic system received Spartan assistance in seizing control of Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). This short-lived oligarchy of Athenians was itself overthrown in a civil war, and democratic government returned to Athens. This restored democracy, however, was more restrictive, like those in some other Greek city-states: the ekkle¯sia possessed fewer powers and more limitations under the law; fewer posts would be decided by lottery, more by appointment; fewer citizens were deemed eligible to vote or otherwise participate in decision-making. Both oligarchs and democrats found this arrangement acceptable after so many had become disillusioned by the freer, radical democracy in place for much of the fifth century. Instead of criticizing the restored democracy, most Athenians seem to have praised it, dubbing it “Solonian,” as if Solon had intended this form of government for his country. Indeed, it became the model for democratic governments in the Greek territories of the Hellenistic Era (like Cos and Miletus). Democracies across the Greek world were experiments in amateur government in the hands of “the people.” They depended on involved citizens, on voting and public service, and on respect for popularly approved laws. They came in different forms along a spectrum according to the level of popular involvement and the definition of citizenship, and individual proponents of democracy (like the very diverse Athenian democrats Pericles, Nicias, and Cleon) ranged widely across that spectrum. Critics of democracy, especially of radical democracy, found fault with its “rule of the majority” (which they regarded as the domination of the incompetent masses, even when those “masses” amounted to less than 10 percent of the total population), but they never found fault with the fact that Greek democracy of every sort excluded women, sanctioned and depended on slavery, and frequently thrived on international war, even against other democracies. Those Greeks who

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favored and supported democracy concerned themselves principally with how to give a fair share to citizens, not necessarily an equal share, and especially with how to avoid faction and stasis within their communities. See also: Arts: History; Sophists; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Assemblies; Athenian Constitution; Civil War; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Public Officials; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Primary Documents: The Old Oligarch on the Problems of Democracy (Later Fifth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Carlsson, S. 2010. Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence, and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Raaflaub, K., et al. 2007. Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Robinson, E. 1997. The First Democracies. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Robinson, E. 2003. Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings and Sources. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Robinson, E. 2011. Democracy Beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek Classical Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stockton, D. 1990. The Classical Athenian Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

DIPLOMACY In the world of the ancient Greeks, there existed no permanent ambassadors or embassy facilities. Yet diplomacy, at first a purely spoken endeavor and later one recorded profusely within literary evidence and on inscriptions, flourished among their various states, built upon social institutions generally accepted across the political barriers of which the ancient Greeks were so fond. The custom of guest-friendship (xenia) between individuals who were citizens of different communities served as the foundation for all Greek diplomacy. Over time, as inter-state relations became more complex, a private guest-friend (xenos) might be called upon by the community in which he enjoyed xenia to serve as an envoy of that community in its dealings with his home state; so, for instance, a citizen of Sparta who enjoyed xenia in Athens (because he had a private guest-friend there, perhaps a business associate or a fellow devotee in a religious cult) might be asked by the Athenian government to speak in Sparta on behalf of Athenian interests. In modern terms, this would mean imposing upon the personal

Politics and Warfare: Diplomacy

relationship between a foreigner and a fellow-citizen for the public benefit of all fellow-­citizens. So, wherever there were private xenoi, there was a ready supply of potential ambassadors between one’s own and other Greek states. One’s government would simply formalize the public relationship of a private guest-friend by decreeing that individual a proxenos. Although not apparently common in earlier times, by the Classical Age (490– 323 BCE), a Greek community might seek out foreign dignitaries to serve as proxenoi even when those individuals had no private guest-friendships within that community; thus, a government (like the kings of Sparta or the Assembly at Athens) could initiate such relationship on the public level. In such cases, the invitation to serve as a proxenos usually had some basis in the individual’s international reputation, such as fame as a public speaker, or in previous contacts between the individual and the state that sought his xenia, as a result of trading deals, for instance, or even in cases where the individual had been sent in the past as a diplomatic messenger from his own community. So, for example, the Athenians appointed Alexander I of Macedon as their proxenos among his people because his position in the royal family could aid their economic expansionism in his territory and they appointed the poet Pindar of Thebes as their proxenos to Thebes because of some verses that he had composed in praise of Athens. Regardless of the method by which one became a proxenos, the decision to become one rested with the invited individual. Yet such volunteers for what amounted to diplomatic service often passed their guest-friend relationship down through the family, to their sons, nephews, and so on; indeed, the state one served often expected as much. As an example, Alcibiades, the Athenian statesman and general, deliberately worked to restore the xenia with Sparta long enjoyed by members of his family, though it had been abandoned by his father and his grandfather. Appointed as the representative of another state, a proxenos had no official power or position within his own state; he could only use the privileges available to him as a citizen for the sake of the interests he had pledged to represent. Of course, proxenoi were not appointed from among the average citizens of a community; they came from the elite, whether financial, aristocratic, or both, of that state. Such individuals had political access and social clout that could be turned to the advantage of the community with which they enjoyed xenia and they would muster such resources whenever any citizen, and especially formal messengers, from that community visited their own on diplomatic or any other business. Again in the tradition of private xenia, a good proxenos served as a gracious and accommodating host to his public guest-friends. A proxenos gained privileges in the community with whom he enjoyed xenia, such as exemption from certain taxes or customs fees, the right of asylum, the right to own property, access to political officials, and even honorary citizenship

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(particularly noteworthy considering how stingy the ancient Greeks were with extensions of citizenship). Proxenoi received honors for a job well done, including free meals paid for by the “guest-friend” state, invitations to attend or participate in its religious festivals, statues dedicated in their likeness, crowns (of token value and of precious metal), and gifts of money (like the 10,000 drachmae given to Pindar by the Athenians). As wonderful as all this might sound, should any tense relations flare up between his community and the one which he represented, a proxenos might be accused of spying for the latter or of having their interests in mind more than those of his home state. In such cases, proxenoi ran the risk of being penalized by their own fellow citizens or even of suffering execution at their hands. Public guest-friends engaged in long-term diplomacy between states, but they were not the only diplomatic “personnel” in the Greek world. Also important were kerykes or apostoloi, heralds or public messengers. Each community selected from among its members such individuals to convey formal messages of all sorts (requests, threats, promises, warnings, and so on) to other communities, especially during time of war. Heralds from opposing armies often literally crossed paths with one another on the way to their respective destinations (as did the Athenian and Boeotian heralds after the Battle of Delium during the Peloponnesian War). Vulnerable targets in battle zones, heralds identified themselves openly and carried various insignia, particularly the herald’s staff or scepter, for purposes of recognition. A keryx or apostolos delivered the statement of his countrymen and then received the reply to that statement; he was not a negotiator, but he paved the way for those empowered to negotiate. Negotiation between states fell under the purview of proxenoi or of presbeis. The latter were citizens of one’s community selected (usually by vote of the ruling body) to serve as envoys on a particular occasion. They were fully briefed on the issues at hand and authorized to act in the name of their state. Proxenoi and especially presbeis worked out the nuts-and-bolts of inter-state agreements in ancient Greek diplomacy. Before the Archaic Period, (c. 800–490 BCE), such agreements appear to have been unwritten, not uncommon for such an oral culture as the Greeks were in those days. In that era, this began to change with the development of written agreements, as in cases of military alliance, symmachia. Envoys from the interested states would formally agree to rather general terms, such as that each state would stand by the other in military operations against a common threat, having the same friends and the same enemies. By the Late Classical Age, much more complex and detailed agreements came into play to ensure the mutual loyalty of such pacts, as well as sometimes to create sympoliteia, the sociopolitical merging of states. The Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) witnessed many more written agreements, including those establishing epimachia, alliances

Politics and Warfare: Diplomacy

of a purely defensive nature. Multilateral diplomacy became much more common and covered more issues (financial, territorial, judicial, etc.) in more technical and precautionary terms. In fact, Hellenistic diplomatic agreements even regularly carried enforcement clauses, features that had not entered much into earlier documents; Hellenistic kingdoms and federal states had the military might and the clout to serve as enforcers in the diplomatic arena. Requests for diplomatic connections, especially in terms of military assistance, often came about through the assertion of kinship among states. If such kinship was validated, this obligated the related communities to provide various sorts of help to one another, especially to those in vulnerable military circumstances. The Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor engaged in such kinship diplomacy in their appeals to Greek mainlanders, particularly Athens, during the Persian Wars, and Athens turned this to good propaganda purposes to rally inter-state support among Ionian Greeks during the Peloponnesian War against the Dorian Greeks under Sparta’s leadership. In Hellenistic times, with city-states desperate to hold on to their independence by means of reciprocal defense against the domineering monarchies, claims of interstate kinship reasserted themselves in a big way. Not all agreements in ancient Greek diplomacy were aimed at fighting; the concept of a peace agreement (sponde¯), whether oral or written, applied when attempting to put an end to inter-state hostilities. Just as warfare was so frequent among the ancient Greek states, so was the work of envoys and guest-friends to negotiate truces and peace treaties (both referred to as spondai). Truces were, by definition, of short duration, but peace treaties, too, tended to be valid for only a limited time (five or ten years typically, thirty or fifty more rarely). Such agreements guaranteed nonaggression under particular terms and often recognized the mutual strengths of the former belligerents as a deterrent against renewed conflict. As in the case of military alliances, peace agreements by Hellenistic times became more detailed in terms of mutual obligations of and restitutions by the signatories (and even claimed to last “for all time”). Spondai sometimes came about through offers of arbitration from third parties, that is, formal envoys from other states that wished to create or strengthen diplomatic ties with one or both of the belligerents, or that sought to protect their own citizens (for instance, merchants) in a war zone. Proxenoi might also intervene in such ways, as some of them enjoyed xenia with more than one Greek community (take the case of the Athenian Alcibiades who had ties to the rival states Sparta and Argos). Moreover, successful third-party mediation could earn the negotiator privileges of xenia not already possessed. Greek states frequently turned to arbitrators (diaite¯tai) during disputes over boundaries, trade routes, natural resources, and sacred spaces; arbitration might even be required within treaty agreements. Spondai remained for most of Greek history limited in terms of the participants, whether bilateral or multilateral agreements. Only in the fourth century BCE

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did some Greek leaders promote the notion of a common peace (koine¯ eire¯ne¯) among all Greek states, whether directly involved in current hostilities or not. This trend in Greek diplomacy began with the King’s Peace of 387 BCE and ended with the League of Corinth in 337 BCE. Such treaties of common peace promised to prevent warfare through the mutual agreement of military intervention against any state or states that broke the peace, anticipating by more than twenty-two hundred years the reasoning in the U.N. Charter. Whether negotiating pacts of offense, defense, peace, inter-state friendship or commerce, exchanges of civic privileges, or establishment of hegemonic leagues, Greek diplomatic tradition said that each state involved should send at least three envoys to draw up the terms and that each agreement should be finalized, at the time, by libations (spondai, hence the term for truces and treaties) offered to the gods and, during a purposeful formal visit by one’s delegation of envoys to the allied/ treaty state or states, by the joint swearing of oaths (horkoi). Only this final oathtaking actually confirmed the agreement, and it was often renewed annually during the course of the agreement’s term. In this way, diplomacy merged with religion, making it sacred in character and gaining for it the protection of the divine. Since Homeric times at least, the Greeks considered heralds to be under the protection of the gods Zeus and Hermes; they were even referred to as the “friends of Zeus.” Public guest-friends and envoys shared similar reverence and perhaps the same international protections against violation; heralds, certainly, could travel anywhere, even in wartime, without any danger of molestation. Such “diplomatic personnel” engaged in “sacred” work, but ancient Greek diplomacy did not bring about perpetual peace or unity among the Greeks. It was not really intended to. Rather, diplomacy served to maintain maximum independence among the Greek states within a minimum of acceptable mutual strife. See also: Arts: Poetry, Lyric; Sophists; Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets; Orators and Speechwriters; Trade; Travel; Food and Drink: Hospitality; Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Citizenship; City-States; Leagues/ Alliances; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Public Officials; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Religion and Beliefs: Asylum; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups; Primary Documents: Aeschines on Foreign Negotiation and Domestic Mud-Slinging (343 BCE) FURTHER READING Adcock, F., and D. J. Mosley. 1975. Diplomacy in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson.

Politics and Warfare: Ethnos Ager, S. K. 1996. Interstate Arbitration in the Greek World, 337–90 B.C. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Austin, M. M. 2006. The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bederman, D. J. 2001. International Law in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gerolymatos, A. 1986. Espionage and Treason: A Study of the Proxenia in Political and Military Intelligence Gathering in Classical Greece. Amsterdam: Brill. Gruen, E. S. 1984. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1971. The Law of Athens. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Herman, G. 1987. Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, C. P. 1999. Kinship Diplomacy in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Low, P. 2007. Interstate Relations in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, L. G. 1997. Greeks Bearing Gifts: The Public Use of Private Relationships in the Greek World, 435–323 B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mosley, D.  J. 1973. Envoys and Diplomacy in Ancient Greece. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Ogden, D., ed. 2002. The Hellenistic World: New Perspectives. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Plescia, J. 1970. The Oath and Perjury in Ancient Greece. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press. Raaflaub, K., ed. 2007. War and Peace in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Ryder, T. T. B. 1965. Koine eirene: General Peace and Local Independence. Hull, U.K.: University of Hull Publications. Sommerstein, A. H., and J. Fletcher, eds. 2007. Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Walbank, M. B. 1978. Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century B.C. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

ETHNOS Scholars often distinguish between two broad types of community in the world of the ancient Greeks, the polis, or city-state, and the ethnos, or “nation of people.” In this, they follow in the footsteps of ancient Greek writers, especially historians and playwrights, who themselves came from poleis and who sought to describe Greek territories with large populations that tended to live outside urban centers; such authors were also looking for ways to differentiate their sociopolitical environment from these others and, indeed, of casting their own milieu as the superior of the two types. In point of fact, many ethne¯ actually consisted of multiple poleis; polis and ethnos were thus not always that different and were not mutually exclusive.

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The notion of an ethnos derives from the essential meaning of the word, which can be rendered as a group of living things that behave together according to similar habits or customs; a flock of geese or a swarm of bees are, in essence, an ethnos. In human terms, an ethnos shared presumed kinship (traced back to a common ancestor, usually a legendary hero), language, religious practices, and other elements of culture. Thus, one could speak of the three great linguistic “tribes” of the Greeks in Classical times (490–323 BCE), the Dorians, Ionians, and Aeolians, as ethne¯; each tribe could be subdivided, though, and further subdivided still into more particular groups, smaller ethne¯. Speakers of Aeolic Greek, for instance, included the Boeotian ethnos and the Thessalian ethnos, among others; those of Doric Greek included the Aetolian ethnos, the Molossian ethnos, the Locrian ethnos, and many others. The Greeks who constituted such ethne¯ appear to have experimented with many different forms of governance. On the one hand, whereas monarchy fell almost completely out of favor among the Greek poleis, in some ethne¯, the institution of one-man rule not only held on throughout most of Greek history but also defined the ethnos itself, as among the Epirotes or the Macedonians, for instance; many scholars recognize how there could not have been a people who identified themselves as “the Macedonians,” for example, without the unifying efforts of the Macedonian kings, who basically compelled separate ethne¯ in the far north of Greece to forge a common destiny. On the other hand, the ethne¯ of Boeotia, Acarnania, and especially Aetolia and Achaea, developed governing institutions that attempted to maximize democratic participation among their citizens, while at the same time preserving the integrity of the complex cultural identities (often referred to by scholars as “subdivisions” or “tribes”) that went to make up each ethnos as a whole. Ancient authors most frequently utilized the term ethne¯ when referring to the populations of the central and northern Greek mainland. The ethnos of the Aetolians, for instance, traced its existence all the way back to Homeric times; in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), Greek authors defined it as consisting of small villages organized into three “tribes.” Envoys from each of these “subdivisions” of the ethnos (in reality, its separate founding “members,” without which there would have been no larger ethnos) went to the Peloponnesian League to seek military assistance against Athenian aggression during the Peloponnesian War. Such “subdivisions” were regarded as peculiarly defining features of an ethnos, as noted above; for instance, the Achaean ethnos traditionally divided itself into twelve separate locales, while the ethnos of Thessaly had four “regional” divisions, and the ethnos of Locris had two. Even though Greeks who lived in poleis also divided themselves into smaller tribes (like the ten tribes of Athens or the three tribes of Sparta), the smaller ethne¯

Politics and Warfare: Ethnos

within the larger ethne¯ of central and northern Greece still seemed odd to polisdwellers; they would never have sent ambassadors officially representing different areas of their city-states, as the Aetolians did, but rather would have sent envoys to represent the totality of the polis. Polis-dwellers, though, did not favor as much local autonomy within the territory of their “nation” as did the ethnos-dwellers, and that greater autonomy did not always mean disunity (as it was often misinterpreted), as the Athenians themselves found out when the “weak” Aetolian cantons put up a fairly united front against Athenian aggression during the Peloponnesian War. The case of the Aetolian ethnos reveals another sort of characteristic that often distinguished ethne¯ from poleis: the fluidity of what constituted the territory of an ethnos. Over the centuries, “Aetolia” did not always mean exactly the same geographical space, mainly as a result of conflicts and shifting of allegiances of its constituent populations and those other groups who joined or left the ethnos voluntarily or as a result of various pressures. Indeed, the expansionism of many ethne¯, both by means of force and peaceful alliance, was often simply a response to the pressures that certain Greek poleis exerted upon the “amorphous” ethne¯. Greeks from the major poleis looked down upon the ethne¯ for living scattered in small villages without defensive fortifications. Macedonia provided a prime example, divided between its urbanized south and its northward, heavily forested hinterland. Literary and especially archaeological evidence, however, belies this biased perspective, revealing the many poleis—perhaps smaller but still ­significant—located in the ethne¯ of Boeotia, Thessaly, Achaea, and so on. Even in Macedonia, King Philip II organized the tribal cantons of the north to carry out many of the same sociopolitical functions of poleis. Following the earlier lead of the Boeotian ethnos, the Thessalian ethnos, and the Acarnanian ethnos, by the third century BCE, the ethnos of Aetolia had evolved into a federalized sort of government known as the Aetolian League, as had also the Achaean ethnos and a number of others. All these populations experienced periods of unified government, dissolution, and reconstitution of what Greeks would have loosely termed their koinon, “common fellowship,” and all included in that common endeavor peoples technically outside the ethnos itself; the Achaean League of the fourth century BCE, for instance, had straddled both the north and south shores of the Corinthian Gulf, territory well beyond the heartland of the Achaeans, while the enlarged third-century league also stretched beyond its “ethnic” limits, again displaying the sort of comfort with fluid borders noted above. Most ethne¯ shared a common religious center that often became a common political meeting-place as well; this common religiosity seems to have often generated the ethnos identity. The Aetolians had Thermum, for example, a place sacred to the god Apollo (and to the Aetolians in common at least as far back as the

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seventh century BCE), where they celebrated the Thermika festival each fall, during which they held their most important political meetings. Similarly, their neighbors to the east, the ethnos of Phocis, honored their founding hero at Daulis, while the Boeotian ethnos had focal sanctuaries to Athena and Poseidon. The Achaeans in the northern Peloponnese centered their common worship near Aigion, in honor of Zeus Hamarios. The regions of Greece inhabited by ethne¯ varied in terms of terrain, from gentle pastureland to rugged highlands, and in terms of climate, from temperate to almost alpine. In general, though, they seemed different, even “exotic,” to the Greeks who lived in the major city-states, which tended to be located along the shorelines and on the islands of the Aegean world. The ethne¯ lived in “uncivilized” and “barbarous” places by comparison, or at least that was how the polis-dwellers saw it; such places produced “odd” Greeks, “vicious,” “lawless” brigands,” “beasts of prey,” and “eaters of raw flesh,” whose clothes and weapons resembled those of “bygone times.” They were throw-backs to a world long-forgotten in the poleis. Yet so much of that was gross exaggeration. The ethne¯ did not field as many hoplites as they did light-armed skirmishers and horsemen, nor could their people always afford to dress in the same (often impractical) fashions as Greeks along the coasts; they had adapted to very different environments, as mountain-men, as ranchers, as farmers and shepherds. Nevertheless, the ethne¯ had their great urban centers, their embellished sacred shrines, and their interestingly complicated institutions and customs that made them just as Greek as their polis-dwelling cousins. See also: Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry; Slavery, Public; Housing and Community: Country Life; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Arms and Armor; Cavalry; Citizenship; City-States; Democracies; Diplomacy; Leagues/Alliances; Monarchies; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups FURTHER READING Bommeljé, L. S., P. K. Doorn, M. Deylius, et al. 1987. Aetolia and the Aetolians. Utrecht: Parnassus Press. Buck, R. J. 1994. Boiotia and the Boiotian League, 423–371 BC. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Buckler, J., and H. Beck. 2008. Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Errington, R. M. 1990. A History of Macedonia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Fossey, J. M. 1988. Topography and Population of Ancient Boiotia. 2 vols. Chicago: Ares.

Politics and Warfare: Hoplite Soldiers Ginouvès, R., ed. 1994. Macedonia from Philip II to the Roman Conquest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Grainger, J. D. 1999. The League of the Aitolians. Leiden: Brill. Hall, J. M. 1997. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, J. M. 2002. Hellenicity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hammond, N. G. L., G. T. Griffith., and F. W. Walbank. 1996. A History of Macedonia. Vols. 1–3. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hansen, M. H., and T. H. Nielsen, eds. 2004. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, C. P. 1999. Kinship Diplomacy in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Larsen, J. A. O. 1968. Greek Federal States. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scholten, J. B. 2000. The Politics of Plunder: Aitolians and Their Koinon in the Early Hellenistic Era, ca. 279–217 B.C. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Westlake, H. 1935. Thessaly in the Fourth Century B.C. London: Methuen.

HOPLITE SOLDIERS Across the Greek poleis during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, especially in those city-states located in the Peloponnese, more and more citizens began to benefit from economic prosperity brought on by improvements in agriculture and trade. They garnered enough wealth, in fact, to be able to afford luxuries previously available only to aristocrats and unavailable to themselves, including such things as weapons and armor made of iron and bronze. Over time, probably through trial and error, they selected and combined together certain types of weapons and armor to constitute standard outfits for defense of themselves, their families and homes, and their city-states. Greeks referred to such an assemblage of weaponry and body armor as a hoplon and to the man who possessed one as hoplite¯s, in English, a hoplite. Throughout much of Greek history, the more prosperous city-states became, the more they sought to maintain that prosperity, and to augment it, through expansion of trade routes and control of valuable resources in their neighborhood, especially water and farming land; less prosperous poleis sought to catch up with the others. This led to incessant warfare over the limited “spoils” in the Greek world, in the interests of defense and expansion of one’s own community, with perhaps a third of a city-state’s citizen population ready to fight on the battle lines at any one time as hoplites. In most Greek communities, hoplite training was quite open, often taking place in full view in a city-state’s gymnasia. Athens is a case in point. There every

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young male citizen (unless mentally or physically incapable) was required to train for two years (typically between the ages of eighteen and twenty) to become an effective hoplite soldier in the ephe¯beia (corps of young men); reformed by the government in 335 BCE, it likely had been a very long tradition among the Athenians. In their first year, ephebes (ephe¯boi in Greek) engaged together in physical fitness training; they also learned to use the bow and the javelin, as well as the sword (the basic weapons of most hoplites), and practiced vaulting over obstacles and on horseback. From the later fifth century BCE onward, the families of some ephe¯boi hired hoplomachoi, professional instructors, technicians of combat, to train their sons privately, giving them an advantage over their peers. Cadets displayed proficiency in all their hoplite skills publicly, in the theater of the city before the ekkle¯sia, the Athenian legislative assembly which consisted of all men eligible to vote; the voters, one’s older peers, awarded successful ephebes with a new shield or spear at public expense. Aside from this particular gear, a hoplite soldier in Athens (as in most of the Greek world) was expected to equip himself. Then came the second year of hoplite training, as guards at border fortresses and on patrols of Athenian territory; this training would have been much more secretive than an ephebe’s first year, and thus more in line with Spartan practices. Such duty not only completed an ephebe’s preparation to serve as a hoplite but was also intended to reinforce Athenian grave marker, or stele¯, depicting a hoplite the strong bonds between him soldier about to attack a fallen enemy who defends himself to the end, c. 390 BCE. The standing citizen- and the other members of his unit. One might even be stationed soldier clasps his large round shield and wears clothing more commonly seen in images of gods farther afield in the second year than mortals, suggesting his spirit’s transition into the of training, perhaps among the realm of the gods or the godlike qualities of heroic Athenian colonists and settlers combat. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Fletcher in other parts of the Aegean; Fund, 1940)

Politics and Warfare: Hoplite Soldiers

Athenian men living far from home still had the obligation to train and serve as hoplites. A key feature of hoplite preparation took place beyond the formal training: the informal training in martial values, such as discipline, self-sacrifice, courage. These were inculcated in every young Greek male as part of Greek culture, instilled from childhood onward. There were no written codes of military conduct or standard system of military punishments to study and memorize (at least, not until Hellenistic times). Instead, there were family stories and local stories about great soldiers, and stage plays in cities like Athens, that reiterated age-old military traditions. There were especially the repeated principles of combat and warrior ethics found in the great myths, like Homer’s Iliad. Each hoplite had to accept for himself the high standards of his entire culture and live up to them, or be shunned by it. Athenian formal and informal training of hoplites, and the weaponry with which they practiced, resembled that of most city-states in the Greek world; there tended to be no more frequent or involved training, probably because frequent action in combat served as a constant training. There were some modifications to this, of course. For instance, in addition to the 3,000 men who served him as Hypaspists (Long Shields), the permanent royal bodyguard armed and trained in hoplite style, King Philip II of Macedon added the Pezetairoi (“Infantry Companions”), some 9,000 peasants drafted and trained to fight using a long sarissa or pike. Such troops built upon basic hoplite skills, but had to move beyond them as well in order to stay finely tuned in their new arms and tactics for the king. Philip’s son Alexander the Great developed a constant, complex training regimen for the troops, which continued under his successors; they even had training manuals to drawn upon. The Spartans, famously, offer the greatest contrast with other poleis. They trained their hoplites every day from the age of seven, often in the most demanding and brutal tactics of survival and discipline; Spartan soldiers also lived together in barracks almost all their lives and devoted themselves to military readiness like no other Greeks. Spartans also had an obsession about keeping secret their methods of hoplite training, especially from outsiders and enemies. Although they might give their hoplites a small monetary allowance, Greek city-states did not usually involve themselves in the provisioning of hoplites out on the march during a campaign. Their rations consisted of barley porridge, salted fish, onions, bread, and seasonings, with fig leaves as utensils; all of this was provided by the soldiers themselves, enough to last three days, and they purchased more, if needed, along the way. These circumstances, along with their self-­equipping, encouraged hoplites to ruthlessly pillage enemy territory. In addition, they were likely to have been the principal customers at the sale of war loot (including weapons and armor) conducted by professional auctioneers who worked for the state.

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If they could afford to do so, hoplites brought along slaves or sometimes young male relatives as attendants; these would strap a wooden yoke over their shoulders to carry the hoplite’s bedding, pots, canteens, and the wicker baskets that served as saddle bags for their rations. Larger armies of hoplites, and longer campaigns, might make donkeys economical as pack animals; a unit of troops who shared the same tent when they slept would make use of the same, heavily laden donkey. Materiel for use by the entire army, like siege ladders and such, might be moved using wagons. On the surface, the typical tactic of the hoplite phalanx, the forward push (oˉthismos) against enemy ranks until the latter turned (trope¯) in retreat, might appear to have left little room for individual hoplite heroism, but that appearance would be deceiving. True, single combat was no longer the rule, as it had been in Homeric times; hoplites certainly depended on one another for protection, and the mutual loyalty of paraspistai (comrades who stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the battle-field) was much heralded. Nevertheless, when phalanxes closed for combat, and especially when the ranks began to crumble and break, the skills and bravery of hoplites as individuals came strongly into play. Indeed, hoplites were taught to hold the line partly in order to prove their individual worthiness to all, with their comrades as clear witnesses. That is why city-states kept honor rolls of their best and bravest soldiers and held them up as examples of true warriors (like the “Marathon Men”); indeed, many poleis segregated their better hoplites from those deemed lesser, placing the best at the forefront, at the rear, or both. This was not meant really to reward certain hoplites for outshining their comrades, but to encourage those comrades to rise to the same standard as the best among them. Inside the polis, the hoplites asserted their importance by demanding greater political power and rights, so that, in most communities, they had a strong share in political decision-making and voting. Democracy would likely not have developed in the Greek world without the clout of such citizen soldiers. Yet most Greek communities, filled with hoplites, did not overthrow aristocratic political power altogether; with strength in numbers and skill in difficult combat, hoplites might have tried to do so everywhere. Instead, even in those communities that adopted democratic forms of government and thereby seriously reduced aristocratic power, the citizen soldiers still relied on the aristocrats to lead the way. On the battlefield, for example, hoplites continued to follow the orders of their aristocratic officers, who used to provide the only fighting force for the city-state and now supplied the cavalry wings that supplemented the hoplite phalanx. Hoplites themselves were not all created equal either. Even in democratic Athens, for instance, where the people vaunted their equality, not every one of the approximately 15,000 hoplites could afford the same panoply or quality of

Politics and Warfare: Hoplite Soldiers

equipment. Many soldiers were simple farmers who came from the agricultural demes, and it seems likely, in fact, that many of the poor Athenian citizens, the socalled the¯tes who worked as laborers in country and town, served right alongside comrades of the higher classes (perhaps even twice as many in number as the latter), despite their disadvantages in terms of weaponry and armor. Such loyal service did not gain the humbler farmers or the the¯tes any bump in status. Greek poleis often attempted to elevate the status of hoplite by forbidding anyone who was not a citizen from possessing a hoplon. Yet in a number of poleis, dependent or subordinate populations supplied hoplite soldiers just as citizens did. Sparta, for example, fielded roughly 8,000 citizen soldiers at its height, but it also called upon the perioikoi, Greeks in neighboring towns that had been conquered by the Spartans, to supply at least as many or more hoplites to their common efforts. The Athenians at the height of their power fielded nearly twice as many citizen soldiers as the Spartans, plus another 16,000 reservists, which included metics, resident aliens whose “visas” demanded that they participate in Athenian military operations. Greek communities were also not too proud to hire foreign soldiers as a supplement to their local forces, if they could afford the expense. Until the fifth century BCE, most of these mercenaries (misthophoroi) came from non-Greek populations in Thrace, Scythia, Iberia, Gaul, Asia Minor, or southern Italy. At that time, large numbers of Greeks, especially those displaced by the Peloponnesian War or by the campaigns of the Sicilian tyrants, began also to serve as soldiers-for-hire; men from Arcadia and Achaea topped the list, but even the mighty Spartans hired, and hired themselves out as, mercenaries. The trend toward using mercenaries instead of citizen soldiers increased dramatically in the fourth century BCE; even the Athenian ephe¯beia became a voluntary training exercise, reduced to one year only, because mercenary forces were so plentiful. The shift benefited Alexander the Great in the raising of his vast armies of paid soldiers, fiercely loyal to him alone. Succeeding monarchs in Hellenistic times maintained mercenaries as elite retainers in large numbers, as well as bringing in mercenaries from their allies. From the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) into the Hellenistic Era (323– 30 BCE), the city-states of the Greek world came to rely on their hoplitai as their main military force. Across many centuries of relatively limited technological change in warfare, perhaps these heavily armored fighting citizens served best to acquire and defend the most prized land in such a rugged region; after all, on average, the winning side in any Greek war lost only about 5 percent of their hoplites, while inflicting roughly as much as a 14 percent loss on their opponents. Hoplites were not always from exactly the same status or with exactly the same degree of political clout; they did not always fight without help from mercenaries or cavalry or skirmishers. They did always derive their principal motivation from the quest

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for honor and the avoidance of shame; they stood fiercely together, but also sought to shine like Homeric heroes. See also: Housing and Community: Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Aristocracies; Arms and Armor; Citizenship; City-States; Democracies; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Phalanx; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status FURTHER READING Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Connolly, P. 1998. Greece and Rome at War. 2nd ed. London: Greenhill Books. Hanson, V. D. 1989. The Western Way of War. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hanson, V. D., ed. 1991. Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience. London and New York: Routledge. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Keegan, J. 1976. The Face of Battle. New York: Penguin. Parke, H. W. 1970. Greek Mercenary Soldiers. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pritchett, W. K. 1971–1991. The Greek State at War. 5 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sekunda, N. V. 1984. The Army of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Osprey. Trundle, M. 2004. Greek Mercenaries from the Late Archaic Period to Alexander. London and New York: Routledge. Van Wees, H., ed. 2000. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales. Van Wees, H. 2004. Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities. London: Duckworth.

JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENT The several phases of ancient Greek history reveal very different approaches to the question of justice and punishment. Where evidence is most plentiful, as at Athens, for instance, it shows a shift from privately exacted vengeance to publicly determined prosecution. In Bronze Age Greece (c. 1700–1100 BCE), the wanax, or ruler, of each Mycenaean citadel had the responsibility of dispensing justice, with the assistance of his court of advisors, most of whom were nobles, wealthy landowners, and perhaps religious officials. The Linear B tablets from the era suggest that there were no recorded laws, clearly not a necessity in a world in which punishment was a strictly

Politics and Warfare: Justice and Punishment

top-down affair carried out by those leaders who ran nearly every aspect of society. Outside of the elite, all other people were either subjects or slaves, punishable according to the rules of the elite, who themselves were probably policed by the wanax and his strongest supporters. After the collapse of Mycenaean civilization, during the so-called Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE), another sort of justice appears to have taken hold among the Greeks, at least if we follow the descriptions of Homer. In the world his poetry reflects, the king still had nominal authority over his subjects, but the warriors of his particular realm had a great deal of leeway and these men tended to determine what was punished or allowed. They frequently challenged each other in various ways to assert their own righteousness, sometimes agreeing to arbitration at the hands of elders or other respected leaders to solve disputes, but most often deciding “cases” by combat; whoever won a contest was considered “right,” whoever lost, “wrong.” There is no sense in Homer’s stories of those lower in status than these warriors having any rights or any opportunities to achieve justice for themselves (aside from rare examples of complaining against the status quo, which never got them what they wanted). This social divide continued into the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), according to the works of Hesiod and other poets, who describe “vengeance” for wrongs done as a matter for equals; blood feud might ensue between parties of the same social level, their families having the responsibility of defending standards of conduct and punishing any breach. In such a world, either the victim or his/her family achieved revenge or there was no justice at all. Alongside this approach to justice and punishment, yet another approach developed in the Archaic Period, especially with the introduction of written laws and their collection. A fourth-century BCE tradition places the earliest example in southern Italy, with the laws of Zaleukos of Locri in the mid-seventh century BCE. Like his near-contemporary Draco of Athens and Charondas of Catana in the following century, Zaleukos sought to place certain legal customs of his society on firmer ground (the ancient Greek word for “custom,” nomos, also meant “law”), while altering others to update them, and moreover to provide clarity of procedure in handling particular disputes and allegations. The power of oneself or one’s family to exact justice remained, but within increasing limitations; the Greek concept of crime began to reject perpetual blood feud. These developments coincided with the rise of poleis or city-states across the Greek world, in which citizenship came to be defined by living according to a generally accepted array of rules. A lawgiver like Zaleukos, or the famous Solon of Athens in the sixth century BCE, set down what the citizens, the participants in a sovereign state, approved of as those rules. As the exiled Demaratus told King

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Xerxes of Persia when speaking of his Spartan compatriots, their self-made master was the law. At Sparta, kings like Demaratus would have decided cases involving certain disputed family matters (like inheritance), while the Council of Elders (Gerousia) judged crimes punishable by atimia (loss of citizen’s rights), exile, or execution. All other cases came before the five Ephors, the highest elected annual officials of state. The growth of such stable aristocratic governments in the Greek city-states also contributed to the change in justice and punishment from a purely private concern to a much more public one. In sixth-century BCE Athens, for example, the aristocratic members of the Areopagus Council served as the “guardians of the laws,” while the Athenian voters meeting in assembly (or at least a significant number of them), known as the He¯liaea, also had a traditional right to hear certain types of cases. In 462/1 BCE, the Athenian politician Ephialtes did arrange to severely curtail the judicial powers of the Areopagus, but this still left it with the responsibility of trying cases of homicide, arson, damage to reputation, and offenses against the Athenian religion. Homicide, then, had become a public matter to be adjudicated out in the open by the Areopagus Council (or a subset of it called ephetai) presided over by the Basileus archoˉn. Meanwhile, important cases of treason, corruption, official malfeasance, embezzlement, threats to public order or against the state (known as eisangelia), as well as all other crimes, were transferred to the jurisdiction either of the Council of 500 (Boule¯) or the He¯liaea (at least until the mid-fourth century BCE, when the Areopagus regained some of its earlier jurisdictions). The He¯iaea also had the charge of punishing authors of motions contrary to the laws of Athens and of throwing out bad laws, so it acted like a modern-day Supreme Court. In the fifth century BCE, the He¯liaea became solidified as an annual body of 6,000 Athenian male citizens, volunteers age thirty and above, selected by lot in groups of sixty from each of the ten tribes of Athens. Those thus selected had to swear by the gods to decide without bias, seek justice, and uphold the laws. As one whole body, though, the He¯liaea could not effectively try the increasingly large number of cases coming to the Athenian docket; a reform of Solon’s allowing any citizen (ho Boulomenos, “whoever wishes to”) to bring charges against any alleged offender (though such an accuser did incur liability to fines for a frivolous, failed, or abortive prosecution) certainly contributed to this increase. Also, since there was no public prosecutor or crime-investigating police force in Athens, even offenses against the state were brought to trial by private accusers. So, the Athenians created a system of jury courts, dikaste¯ria, with the He¯liastai as the panel of eligible jurors. On any given day of the year, the officials known

Politics and Warfare: Justice and Punishment

as archons kept track of which cases had to come to trial and conducted lotteries to determine which members of the panel would serve as jurors on that day. For each “private” lawsuit (dike¯) where the injured individual or family brought the accusation against the alleged offender (except for homicide, so for things like theft, assault, slander, breach of contract), they needed a jury of either 201 or 401 members; for cases where the offender brought “danger” to the public as a whole (graphe¯, things like impiety, treason, bribery), the juries had to consist of at least 501 citizens and sometimes over 1,000. The Athenians had a special lottery “mechanism” called the kle¯rote¯rion for the assigning of jurors to particular courts, which were identified by letters. Potential jurors would arrive at a designated location in the agora and receive a bronze ticket with their name, deme, and one of the court letters on it. They inserted that ticket into a slot on the kle¯rote¯rion, which stood outside the courthouse, and then black and white balls were alternately dropped into a tube along the left side of the kle¯rote¯rion. If a white ball landed alongside the row in which a juror’s ticket was inserted, he had to serve in the designated dikaste¯rion for that day. To incentivize average citizens in being active citizens in the law courts, Ephialtes and his associate Pericles introduced pay for jurors at two (later three) obols per day, an allowance barely enough for a single man to buy some food for himself. Still, poor and elderly Athenian men found this allowance helpful, while wealthy Athenian men found jury service useful for their careers and reputations. In pretrial proceedings, an archon (designated by lot) would hold a sort of hearing in which depositions were taken from the parties involved and the relevant laws were quoted by them. The two parties would also engage in mutual crossexamination and disclosure of pertinent written evidence, frequently pushing one another to confirm certain testimonies by oath-taking. Depositions, laws, written evidence, and so on were then collected and sealed in a container, to be delivered to the appropriate dikaste¯rion. In the trial itself, there was no judge as in a modern American courtroom; one of the Athenian officials (chosen by lot) did preside over the process, but the entire burden of the trial was on the accuser and the accused. Just as in the Council of the Areopagus, where the accuser spoke from “the stone of resentment” and the accused from “the stone of violence,” each party before the jury typically represented himself (women in Athens, as in most Greek cities, could not do so, but were represented instead by a male advocate). Some had good training for this thanks to their own education; hence, the concern of the character Strepsiades, in Aristophanes’ comedy Clouds to secure for his son the “proper” training for winning suits in court. Others relied on professional speechwriters to tell them what to say and how to say it; hence, the proliferation of Sophistic education at Athens and the careers of great speechwriters like Lysias or Antiphon. The two parties at trial

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commonly emphasized their character, reputation, and public service, slung mud at their opponent, and pleaded emotionally with the jurors. One of the jurors (selected by lot) worked the water clock (klepsydra) that timed the alternating speeches of the defendant and the plaintiff, and thereby kept them under some control, since the entire trial had to be completed in one day or less. The clock was stopped while laws or witness testimony were read out. No one, not even the litigants, questioned the witnesses, nor was there any crossquestioning of one another. Four other jurors (also decided by lot) counted the votes. Each juror used a bronze disc to cast his secret vote (hollowed in the center for the plaintiff and knobbed in the center for the defendant) and placed it into a set of large jars to be counted. Thus, they did not deliberate the case among themselves nor explain their votes. Finally, the penalty phase of the trial (time¯sis) consisted either of simply quoting the punishment outlined in a particular statute or inviting the parties at trial to propose and counter-propose penalties. These ranged from various fines (the most common), to whipping, atimia (loss of citizenship rights), exile, or death, depending on the crime and the status of the convicted party. The jurors would then vote for one of the proposed punishments. Certainly, the ancient Greek court case still most commonly known among moderns is that of Socrates in 399 BCE. Three of the philosopher’s personal enemies (Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon) hauled him in on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of the city. In truth, they wanted to charge him with consorting with enemies of the state, but such political charges were impossible to pursue under the amnesty granted to all Athenians in 403 BCE. Socrates famously proposed his own range of punishments, like a lifetime of public support, but his accusers proposed death by means of lethal poison (that is, hemlock, a neurotoxin), and the jury voted against Socrates and condemned him to death. Since some Greek communities, like Sparta, never had written laws but instead relied on “verbal covenant” (rhe¯tra) to maintain eunomia (a condition of good order and habits, the ideal of ancient Greek society), determination of justice and punishment relied on “remembrancers” (mne¯mones, anamne¯mones, hieromne¯mones), men highly talented in memorizing local customs, rules, and procedures. In most Greek communities, even Athens, no centralized system of legal records existed for consultation until the end of the fifth century BCE (and even then, it was not perfect) and there was no jurisprudence to draw upon. So, justice and punishment relied on the citizens’ collective understanding of what they would have called ta patria (things of the fathers), that is, ancestral custom, along with knowledge of scattered long-term laws (nomoi or

Politics and Warfare: Justice and Punishment

thesmoi) and short-term decrees (  pse¯phismata) made by governing bodies over the generations. All of this knowledge was quite public, since Athenian officials posted notices of new laws and decrees, and of impending lawsuits, where the tribal hero statues stood in front of the Council House (Bouleterion) in the central marketplace. Moreover, Athenian juries met roughly two hundred days out of every year, which meant that hundreds or even thousands of citizens were engaged in legal proceedings on each of those court days. Not surprisingly, then, jury trials were not only an important aspect of daily, civic life in Athens but also became spectator events. Thus, Athenian justice and punishment through the dikaste¯ria was not that much different an experience from the high-profile cases so publicized in modern courtrooms (though they could not go on for days and days). They similarly drew in their fair share of “informers,” who in Athens earned a percent of the damages paid by the convicted party in a successful prosecution! Unlike Sparta or Athens, other Greek communities placed justice and punishment in the hands of individual judges. Evidence for this comes, for example, from the well-preserved law code of Gortyn on Crete, where such dikastai heard cases of family law, loans, property, treatment of slaves, and so on. They were expected to tightly adhere to the strict letter of the law, as had been established by the voters, in almost all instances. In the absence of certain types and quantities of evidence, it is difficult to establish how widely the legal processes of Athens or Sparta had parallels across the Greek world. What the evidence suggests in general, though, is that the private citizen took on the principal burden of pursuing justice and insisting on punishment. See also: Arts: Rhetoric; Sophists; Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters; Family and Gender: Extended Family; Men; Women; Housing and Community: Marketplaces; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Democracies; Public Officials; Science and Technology: Calendars; Education; Inscriptions; Time-Reckoning; Primary Documents: Lysias on the Murder of an Adulterer (403 BCE) FURTHER READING Boegehold, A. L. 1995. The Lawcourts at Athens: Sites, Buildings, Equipment, Procedure, and Testimonia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, D. 1995. Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foxhall, L., and A. Lewis, eds. 1996. Greek Law in Its Political Setting. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Gagarin, M. 1986. Early Greek Law. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Harrison, A. R. W. 1971. The Law of Athens. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lanni, A. 2006. Law and Justice in the Courts of Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacDowell, D. M. 1978. The Law in Classical Athens. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. MacDowell, D. M. 1986. Spartan Law. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Ostwald, M. 1969. Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Papakonstantinou, Z. 2008. Lawmaking and Adjudication in Archaic Greece. London: Bloomsbury. Rhodes, P. J., and D. M. Lewis. 1997. The Decrees of the Greek States. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Todd, S. C. 1993. The Shape of Athenian Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wallace, R. W. 1989. The Areopagos Council to 307 BC. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

LEAGUES/ALLIANCES The Greeks tended to form alliances between city-states only on a temporary basis, to assist one another in fending off common dangers. When such dangers demanded, they might even form alliances in which whole leagues of city-states committed to their mutual protection. In the case of such leagues, the tendency shifted to more permanent commitments. A good example is the so-called Peloponnesian League created by the Spartans. By the late sixth century BCE, they had established treaties with most of the communities in the Peloponnese (that is, with those that they had not already conquered and absorbed into Spartan territory). They expected their treaty allies to have “the same friends and enemies” as Sparta and to follow Spartan directions in exchange for protection from the Spartan army when endangered; Spartan leaders summoned and presided over meetings of this symmachia, “military alliance,” where members brought forward complaints or issues of mutual concern and awaited the response of the Spartan people. The Spartans had a veto over decisions of joint action, which were reached by a majority vote among the member states; Spartan commanders led the league’s combined armed forces, with allied contingents commanded by their own officers, and directed their tactics. Clearly, the Spartans dominated this league and made it viable. They took on a much more cooperative role as members of the alliance formed in 480 BCE in defense of Greece against the Persian Empire. True, the headquarters for this symmachia was the city of Corinth, a member of the Peloponnesian

Politics and Warfare: Leagues/Alliances

League, but many other allied states were not members of that league, especially Athens. Each military ally sent its representatives to swear reciprocal oaths to protect one another if attacked and the allies together determined policy, strategy, and tactics through majority vote. Such an expansive alliance was always precarious; when the Persians sacked Athens, for instance, the latter’s Peloponnesian allies were nowhere to be found, as they were busy building a defensive wall across the Isthmus of Corinth to guard their own turf. An even better example of a long-term alliance was what scholars term the Delian League, created by the Athenians after the Persian Wars. Many Greek allies from that conflict refused to accept Spartan leadership any longer and, when the Peloponnesian states pulled out of the old anti-Persian coalition, the Athenians became the new leaders by default. Athens redirected the reconfigured symmachia toward new goals, “to liberate Greeks still under Persian dominion,” “to ravage Persian territories,” and “to maintain Greek freedom.” Members ceremonially cast lumps of iron into the sea, pledging no end to their coalition until those lumps floated to the surface; that is, it had no imaginable end. The Athenians would later play this as far as they could. The Delian League was always first and foremost a naval alliance, its most significant members being maritime states, such as the islands of Samos, Chios, Lesbos, Rhodes, Cyprus, as well as the coastal cities in Thrace and Asia Minor, and, of course, Athens. The allies sent representatives to the sacred island of Delos where they met as an executive council with powers to make policy for the league and determine its military and diplomatic actions; each member state had one vote in council. They established a special treasury on Delos to fund their operations; monetary contributions to it were made by each ally (except those few which contributed ships and crews instead) on an annual basis. The member states expected their local autonomy to be respected, something the Athenians discovered ways to circumvent. For instance, the ten treasurers of the league, who assessed how much the contributions should be and oversaw the collection and distribution of the funds, came from Athens, giving the Athenians great influence in the league (especially when they relocated the treasury to Athens “for safe-keeping”). During the course of its history, the integrity of the Delian League was often challenged by member states that wished to leave the alliance for one reason or another. Athenian leaders and the Athenian people profited so much from their wide influence through the league, and their access to its treasury, that they had no intention of allowing such secessions or, it seems, of even disbanding the league when their Persian adversaries had suffered repeated defeat. Athens punished disaffected or rebellious allies, posted its own commissioners within allied communities to watch, investigate, and report on local political conditions, its own garrisons to install pro-Athenian governments, and even its own settlers to confiscate the lands

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of uncooperative allies. Athenian laws and decrees, unilateral and backed up by force, were prominently displayed in all league cities, and their language became ever more offensive, referring to “the cities over which the Athenians rule.” Athenian authoritarianism eventually contributed to the collapse of the Delian League in its war against the Peloponnesian League. Several systems of alliance were formed to guarantee independence of Greek states from these two leagues. For instance, the Boeotians revived a defunct koinon or “community” among themselves, in which the member states combined to form eleven voting blocks, roughly equal in population, each block sending sixty representatives and one boeotarch (an administrative and military leader) to a common council (synedrion). Each state retained its local autonomy, but common concerns, like defense against Athens, were handled through the federal synedrion or other committees, including a common court of justice; member states contributed troops to a common army according to quotas based on manpower. The city-state of Thebes contributed the largest quota, and formed two voting blocks on its own, so, not surprisingly, the Thebans several times attempted to dominate the policies of the Boeotian League. In another example, many city-states feared the chummy relations formed between Sparta and Athens during a period of truce in the midst of the Peloponnesian War; accusing Sparta of betraying Greek freedom by negotiating with Athens, disaffected Peloponnesian allies (like Corinth and Megara) and jealous enemies of Sparta (like Argos) joined with the Boeotian League to form a new, third block in Greek affairs, its mission to challenge Athens and weaken Sparta’s hold over the Peloponnese. Finally, on the eve of the great war between Athens and Sparta, when Athenian imperialism became too much for the Greek communities of the Chalcidice Peninsula, they joined together in an anti-Athenian coalition, sharing common laws, collecting common taxes, and minting a common currency; this Chalcidian League worked with the Spartans when beneficial, with the Athenians when the latter behaved themselves, and always with the supportive kings of Macedon (until Philip II conquered the Chalcidians in the fourth century BCE). After Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, its leaders did learn some lessons about running an alliance and applied them in a new league (which we call the Second Athenian Sea League) formed in the fourth century BCE. Many old member states joined up again “to defend freedom” against Sparta, but this time, they built the league upon bilateral treaties with Athens that guaranteed their autonomy, forbade garrisons, settlers, collection of tribute, and all the old abuses of the Delian League. Unlike that former organization, members of the new coalition had a permanent council of representatives in Athens, which presented issues to the Athenian voters just like the Athenians’ own steering committee would do.

Politics and Warfare: Leagues/Alliances

These various alliance systems provided the models for King Philip of Macedon when he called all Greeks to forge not only a common peace among them but also a new league for the purpose of maintaining this “peace and freedom” across the Greek world; it pledged to prevent all acts of aggression, subversion, piracy, tyranny, or revolution. A permanent synedrion (proportional representation again being based on each member’s military manpower) was to direct the actions of this “League of Corinth” under the leadership of Philip as the “elected” he¯gemoˉn, “supreme commander.” Powerful, independent-minded states, like Thebes and Sparta, found themselves hemmed in by members of the league and by Macedonian garrisons at strategic locations in Greece. Apparently, many, especially smaller, Greek states, always caught in the cross-fire between the bigger powers, welcomed Philip’s alliance. They saw it as fostering “Panhellenism,” a political doctrine promoted by the late Athenian orator and teacher Isocrates (436– 338 BCE), who for the last fifty years of his life had called on the major powers of Greece to reconcile, end internecine strife, and destroy their “true” enemy, the Persian Empire. Philip’s League of Corinth technically survived him, but the power of Macedon within the alliance was soon counterbalanced by several new federalized states, basically permanent unions of city-states. In central Greece north of Boeotia, for example, the Aetolian League grew out of old cultural and religious links to become a permanent political and military confederacy there; all male citizens from member states met twice a year in the panaetolika ekkle¯sia (an assembly where they voted by head) to elect a Council of 1,000 (representation proportional), the apokle¯toi (thirty magistrates with restricted powers of day-to-day administration, all accountable to the voters), a strate¯gos (supreme commander), a treasurer, and so on. Similarly, sixty states in the Peloponnese reinvigorated the old Achaean League; their synodos of elected representatives met four times a year and voters elected an annual board of officials (synarchiai) and the league strate¯gos. In each koinon, all communities made use of a common currency, contributed to a collective army, paid proportional taxes into a collective treasury, and, perhaps most important, shared the benefits of sympoliteia (citizenship in the league) and isopoliteia (the right to relocate to any member state as a citizen of that state). The federal leagues of the fourth century BCE onward could muster, train, and command armies, and sometimes naval forces, numbering in the tens of thousands, as great as those previously fielded only by the major city-states of the Greek world, like Syracuse and Akragas in Sicily, or Ephesus and Miletus in Asia Minor, or Argos, Athens, and Sparta in mainland Greece. Since poleis typically fielded several hundred troops at most, these permanent coalitions could offer their common citizenry a much greater sense of security, protection, and stability than most of them had ever known.

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Despite the potential for parasitic behavior on the part of the leading members of ancient Greek leagues (like Sparta, Athens, or Thebes) and the continuing tendency of such states (as seen in the case of Sicyon in the Achaean League) to direct the course of such coalitions for their own benefit, the Greeks found much-needed common ground in their alliances, whether temporary or permanent. Indeed, experience with alliances, especially the long-term leagues of the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), taught the Greeks how to look and work beyond the borders of their feuding communities. See also: Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Assemblies; Citizenship; City-States; Councils; Diplomacy; Hoplite Soldiers; Navies; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Public Officials; Primary Documents: Herodotus on Gelon’s Refusal to Join the Greek Alliance (481 BCE) FURTHER READING Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buck, R. J. 1994. Boiotia and the Boiotian League. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. De Romilly, J. 1963. Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism. London: Blackwell. Kagan, D. 2004. The Peloponnesian War. London: Penguin. Larsen, J. A. O. 1966. Representative Government in Greek and Roman History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Larsen, J. A. O. 1968. Greek Federal States. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tritle, L. A., ed. 1997. The Greek World in the Fourth Century. London and New York: Routledge. Walbank, F. W. 1992. The Hellenistic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

MONARCHIES The ancient Greeks knew firsthand about monarchy , especially in the earliest period of their recorded history. In later eras, for a quite a few centuries, most of the Greek communities abandoned monarchy as a form of government. Yet, in the end, even these states found themselves once again under the influence or the direct authority of reinvigorated or brand-new monarchies. During the Mycenaean civilization (c. 1700–1100 BCE), the Linear B tablets at various Greek citadels attest in detailed terms to the power and wealth of those leaders entitled “wanax,” chief, warlord, king. Each wanax dominated his territory through loyal warriors and bureaucrats; these individuals made sure that the

Politics and Warfare: Monarchies

populations under the authority of their wanax obeyed him, handed over their produce and wares to him, and remained subservient to his every wish. With the collapse of the Mycenaean societies during the Greek Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE), a new form of kingship seems to have developed. Many have suggested that Homer’s famous poetry, especially the Odyssey, gives us a glimpse, a memory of this type of monarchy. We see characters like Nestor, Menelaus, and Odysseus himself ruling over small, self-sufficient communities as basileis (sing. basileus), the classical Greek term for kings. Like a Mycenaean wanax, a Dark Age basileus, if we can trust the fundamental descriptions in the story, was still wealthy, rich in land and other possessions (especially flocks and herds). The basileus was still first and foremost the military leader and protector of his people, expected to personally engage in battle and expand the territory and resources of his kingdom; he was still expected to be a gracious host toward fellow nobles and prominent visitors, that is, to display xenia, another feature inherited from the days of the wanax; he was still expected to serve as chief intermediary between his people and the gods. Unlike a wanax, though, a basileus was not nearly as affluent; he might even have to work his land himself, and he did not receive the output of his people to tax and redistribute. He had no bureaucrats to intervene for him, so he had to get his hands dirty, for instance, by arbitrating or judging disputes among his subjects. In addition, a basileus had a struggle of charisma, strategy, and brute force on his hands as he attempted to maintain his own status among competing nobles and warriors, many of whom wished to take his place and many of whom likely came from among his own relatives. He thus exercised quite limited authority as “shepherd over his people,” which is why he had to gauge their sentiments and mobilize support for his important decisions through frequent consultation with councils of elders and assemblies of warriors or freemen. One thing Homer’s poems and other early tales of the Greeks make clear is that the power and wealth of a basileus was up for grabs upon his death (or disappearance) by the strongest (or most cunning) warrior; inheritance of the kingship had no guarantee except the might of the heir against his rivals. In the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), even such limited monarchy as that just described began to collapse. The end came swiftly in some places, as at Corinth, where the Bacchiads had ruled as kings and as a sort of royal collective for eight generations until one of their own ousted them to become tyrant. Athenian tradition claimed that their last king, Codrus, heroically lost his life in the eleventh century BCE, whereas, in fact, it seems that the noble Athenian families or Eupatrides overthrew the last basileus in the early seventh century. They handed his functions over to three appointed (later elected) officials, one serving

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as military commander, another as chief priest, and the last as head of the city’s administration. Traditional monarchy never returned to Athens or to many other city-states in central and southern Greece, and across the rest of the Greek world, where aristocracies supplanted one-man rule. In some few cases, as particularly in Athens, democratic government emerged from such aristocracies. In most Greek communities, evidence suggests a gradual and peaceful transition from monarchy to aristocracy. Into the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), there were exceptions to this shift. One of the most famous was Sparta, where two royal families, both claiming descent from the famous hero Heracles, ruled in tandem. Spartan monarchy possessed its limitations, however. The two kings held supreme military command in theory, but in practice they had to answer to the board of ephors, two of whom always accompanied the kings into battle and assessed their competence and their compliance with Spartan laws. The two kings sat with the other members of the gerousia or council of elders to vote on policies for the state; they could not unilaterally create such policies without the gerousia weighing in. Even in their religious capacity as high priests, the Spartan kings operated under constant scrutiny. In northern Greece, the tagos of Thessaly, especially prominent in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, acted in his capacity as a sort of king for the entire region, but subject to the same kinds of dangers and pressures as his Dark Age predecessors. The basileis of Macedon did better. Beginning in the seventh century BCE, they brought the cantons of Macedon together as a loose confederation; in the fifth century, the kings of the Argead Dynasty gradually centralized their power and encouraged a sophisticated culture in imitation of the city-states of central and southern Greece; in the fourth century, they literally forged a kingdom out of nothing to become the greatest force for change in the Greek world at the end of the Classical Age and into the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE). Yet they were like throwbacks to a bygone era of monarchy: Macedonian kings ruled as first among their warrior comrades, the chief warrior, high priest, and judge, all authority resting on the personal charisma and skill of the basileus himself. The whole Macedonian “state” consisted of those who had exchanged personal oaths of allegiance with the king, that is, the nobles and warriors of Macedon; they were his court and his assembly of voters, with the power to acclaim or depose the king, to recognize or reject his successor. The practical needs of Greek communities in both the Bronze Age and the Dark Age had made monarchy a viable form of government in those times; major changes in the distribution of wealth among Greek citizens and their growing selfconfidence in decision-making altered their priorities and made monarchy a hindrance. The phenomenal success of the last two Argead kings of Macedon, Philip II

Politics and Warfare: Navies

and his son Alexander the Great, however, established a new paradigm for monarchy among the Greeks and their non-Greek subjects for nearly three centuries; the Greek cities and leagues of cities in the Hellenistic world found themselves underneath or caught between several sometimes-competing, sometimes-­cooperating monarchical states. Already in the fourth century BCE, Greek rhetoricians and philosophers were coming to defend monarchy or at least to herald its best qualities; by the end of the Hellenistic Era, such authors were positively promoting it. As an ironic result, the Greeks did not spread democracy throughout the known world as the highest political ideal, but rather Macedonian-style kingship, supposedly hemmed in by certain guidelines but in fact with all its instability, uncertainties, and fluidity. This legacy the Romans eventually inherited and disseminated even farther afield. See also: Arts: Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Landownership; Housing and Community: Palace Complexes, Bronze Age; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Assemblies; Citizenship; Civil War; Councils; Democracies; Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Spartan Constitution; Science and Technology: Linear A and Linear B FURTHER READING Bosworth, A. 2002. The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, Warfare, and Propaganda under the Successors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Castleden, R. 2005. The Mycenaeans. London and New York: Routledge. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hall, J. M. 2007. A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge. Snodgrass, A. M. 1971. The Dark Age of Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Walbank, F. W. 1992. The Hellenistic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

NAVIES The ancient Greeks had taken to the waters of the Mediterranean as seafarers far back in their history, but, as warriors, they were, for very a long time, landlubbers. That seems to have changed primarily because of the challenges posed, at sea and from across the sea, by major foreign powers, especially the Carthaginians and the Persians. The Greeks soon discovered that they needed to develop navies, that is, fleets of warships, of some sort to counter those challenges. As they did so, they, not surprisingly, turned such navies against one another as well for various advantages,

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and, as a consequence, ushered in a whole new era of warfare that continued well after the golden age of Greece. Thucydides credited the mythical Cretan king Minos with establishing a thalassocracy, or empire of the sea, which would have required a substantial navy; the famous Athenian historian was, in fact, projecting backward in time something more in line with his own day. Indeed, there is no clear evidence of naval warfare within the world of the ancient Greeks before the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE). The Greek communities in that era could not even afford to maintain their own fleets of ships, instead requisitioning vessels, as needed, from wealthy Scarab-shaped gemstone engraved with the image of an ancient Greek warship, or trireme, c. 525–500 shipowners or buying them from BCE. Although small, the carving exquisitely well-known shipbuilders. This captures the essentials of the vessel itself—especially is likely the ultimate origin of the steering oar and upright tail, rowing oars, and the Athenian tradition known as prow or beak used in ramming—as well as its steersman, rowers, and the standing shields of its trie¯rarchia; in the Classical Age marines. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Joseph (490–323 BCE), the Athenian Pulitzer Bequest, 1942) people expected certain wealthy citizens to fund the construction and maintenance of the state’s warships as a sort of tax. Archaic Greek warships varied less in the manner of design and more in terms of how many rowers propelled them; so, there were triaconters (rowed by thirty men) and penteconters (rowed by fifty). In that same era, the Phoenicians of ancient Lebanon introduced biremes (that is, ships with two banks or rows of oars on each side, one above the other), from which the Greeks soon developed their hecatonters (rowed by one hundred men), and especially the heavier and larger triremes (with three banks of oars per side), which some Greek communities adopted in the late sixth century BCE. Many others did so in the early Classical Age. Unlike previous warships, which had virtually no decking, triremes came to be equipped with some

Politics and Warfare: Navies

decking forward and aft; the Athenians also placed a narrow deck down the middle of their triremes, widening it to full coverage by the middle of the fifth century BCE. Such triremes became the standard warships of the Mediterranean navies for generations afterward. Despite the image popular in the modern media, the Greeks did not rely on slave crews to row their warships; this is a modern myth, partly derived from influence the history of Roman seafaring has had on modern perceptions. In fact, the Greeks often propelled their ships to a battle-zone by wind-power, harnessing favorable winds with a square sail attached to a mast and yard-arm at the center of the ship. In battle conditions, they increased the velocity of their vessels by means of paid crews of rowers, like the 150 to 170 oarsmen aboard each Athenian trireme of the fifth century. These included some slaves, but consisted mainly of volunteers, light-armed soldiers, both citizens and resident aliens (metics), who could disembark as marines for the fight on land. In the case of the Athenians, who eventually developed the most famous and most effective navy in all of Greece, we know that they manned each of their triremes not just with rowers but also with as many as sixteen sailors (including the very well-paid kyberne¯te¯s or helmsman), who had acquired specialized skills through experience (since there were no naval training schools or academies in the Greek world), as well as ten hoplites and four archers, all drawn from the citizens. We also know that each of the city-state’s ten tribes (associations of citizen voters) contributed crews to a squadron within the Athenian fleet. Those Greek communities who came to dominate the sea-lanes with their navies could muster tens of thousands of rowers, typically from their urban poor (like the Athenian the¯tes). Expenses for this were high; one hundred triremes (that is, half of the full Athenian fleet in 480 BCE) would have cost roughly 17,000 drachmae (about 3 talents of silver, over 150 pounds worth) in crew wages alone for each day of operation. Hence, the need for hundreds of wealthy sponsors, like the Athenian trierarchs; by the middle of the fifth century, ships’ hulls and rigging were provided from state funds, but trierarchs in Athens met all other costs for a year of operation. No wonder that some of the most prominent navies came from the very wealthiest city-states, like Syracuse and Corinth, who could not only afford the expenses of a fleet but also had large and economically diverse enough populations to possess the needed manpower. Another modern myth to dispel is that naval forces among the ancient Greeks were geared primarily for ship-to-ship combat. In fact, from Homer’s day onward, they served the principal purposes of raiding enemy resources and of launching amphibious assaults on enemy territory. During the Peloponnesian War, for example, Athenian ships carried out many more raids of coastal settlements among their enemies (like the city-state of Megara, for example) than head-on naval battles

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against enemy ships. The crews aboard the triremes traveled very light, sleeping and eating on shore to reduce the need for carrying supplies on board; they hugged the coastline and employed hit-and-run tactics against the populations nearest at hand. All of this would have been as familiar in the later fifth century BCE as it had been to Homer’s listeners in the early eighth century. Although perhaps the most famous ship-to-ship combat in Greek history took place in the Battle of Salamis (480 BCE) during the war between the Greeks and Persians, such combat increased dramatically only in the last decade or so of the Peloponnesian War. The essential weapon of the Greek vessels in such encounters was the ram of bronze molded to the heavy timbers of the ship’s prow, a feature from Archaic times employed at least as early as the Battle of Alalia (c. 535 BCE), when the Carthaginians and Etruscans defeated Greek colonizers in the western Mediterranean. In using a ram, a crew would first take down the masts and sails of their ship, to improve balance and stability, and would then row to top speed (minimum speed was about 9 knots, slightly more than 10 miles per hour), smashing the ram (which might measure six feet long and weigh some nine hundred pounds) into the side or rear of an enemy vessel or through its oars, rendering it unseaworthy or at least crippled; the blunt fins at the bottom of a ram especially did the job of splintering the hull. A buffer of metal above the ram prevented one’s own ship from getting too deep to be caught in the damaged vessel; the trick was then to reverse oar-strokes and pull one’s own ship loose of the enemy. Ancient warships did not sink easily, since they contained no ballast as modern vessels do, but no crew wanted its ship to get caught in an enemy wreck and become a sitting duck for destruction. Corinth, Syracuse, Chios, Samos, Corcyra, Athens, and other similar Greek communities had the manpower and the wealth to launch navies that could hold their own, but banding fleets together to create combined naval forces only became commonplace in the Classical Age. One of the earliest well-recorded naval battles in Greek history, the Battle of Lade (494 BCE), saw the Persian fleet (provided mainly by their Phoenician and other eastern Mediterranean subjects) defeat the Greek navy off the western coast of Turkey. The latter force consisted of a combined fleet, its triremes amassed by nine Greek states to fend off the attacks of Persian warships during the Ionian Revolt (499–494 BCE). The Athenians basically built upon this model when they established the combined navy of the Delian League to keep up the fight against the Persians; individual states contributed ships and crews, if they could and chose to do so, while the rest provided funds for the league’s naval operations. Even the landlubbing Spartans, who became the staunchest opponents of Athenian power, got into the action when they realized that there was no other way to defeat the Athenians except by building up a navy of their own (with Persian

Politics and Warfare: Navies

support) in the last decade or so of the Peloponnesian War. When the Persian Empire, under Cyrus II (commander of Persian forces in Asia Minor), threw its full weight behind Sparta’s destruction of Athenian power, the navarch (fleet commander) Lysander gathered a fleet of seventy triremes (its crews richly paid) and forced Athenian ships to engage in battle off the coast of Ephesus (407 BCE), defeating them; he engaged the Athenian fleet again under Conon at Aegospotami (405  BCE), capturing almost all the Athenian ships. He had in mind to control the Hellespont, the waterway through which Athens received much-needed grain from the Black Sea region, and did so by installing Spartan governors and proSpartan oligarchies in key city-states there, backed up by the Spartan navy. He then detached some of his ships as a force to blockade Athens itself. Lysander’s naval tactics soon contributed to the surrender of Athens and, more than that, naval power gave him the leverage to help Athenian oligarchs to seize control of their own city, overthrowing the democratic system there out of loyalty to Sparta. Sparta’s victory over Athenian naval might was short-lived, though, and well into the fourth century BCE, Athens still commanded one of the most formidable fleets in the Greek world. Athenian sea-power even concerned King Philip II of Macedon, as he extended his sway across northern Greece. To weaken the Athenian position, he turned to capturing and annexing key maritime cities in the north Aegean (348–342 BCE). Athenian naval forces vigorously resisting the absorption of their allies and years of conflict ensued. In the end, Philip utilized his superior military resources on land to nullify the superior naval resources of the Athenians, but he still respected their potential might. That is why, after the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE), Philip’s decisive victory on land, he had his son, Alexander, personally escort home Athenian prisoners of war and return fallen Athenian soldiers with honors. Alexander continued his father’s policy toward the Athenians, respecting their maritime might enough to treat them as allies rather than subjects (as he did with the rest of the Greeks) and enlisting their support in his great campaign against the Persian Empire. Eventually, though, Alexander abandoned use of his fleet and devoted his energies to victory on land. On news of Alexander’s untimely demise, the maritime powers of Greece, like Rhodes, Chios, Ephesus, and Athens, immediately took their chance of launching a rebellion against his cronies. Once again, this Lamian War (323/2 BCE) bogged down into a land campaign, however, and the Macedonian generals won. Navies became of greater importance to the monarchs who succeeded Alexander in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) that followed. Their navies consisted of larger and taller decked polyreme vessels (developed in the fifth century by the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse), Such ships, like those which the Romans called quadriremes (with two men per oar on two levels of oars) and quinqueremes (with

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three levels of oars manned by two men, two men, and one man, respectively), were slower and clumsier than the triremes, triaconters, and penteconters (all still in use), but they were also big enough to carry more troops and often artillery devices, like the catapults employed by Demetrius Poliorcetes (son of King Antigonus I of Macedon). Ship-to-ship combat continued important, but now boarding and capturing of enemy vessels became more commonplace. Hellenistic kings, with their enormous financial resources, recruited mercenary crews from across the Greek world, and even from non-Greek populations, and kept their navies busy in their constant internecine quarreling over hegemony, especially in the third century BCE. In the midst of such mega-navies, some individual Greek city-states still maintained a formidable maritime presence. Most famously, the combined city-states of the island of Rhodes stayed in the competition with their standing fleet of disciplined and faster, even if smaller, ships. Until the intervention of the Romans, the Rhodian navy garnered much respect across the eastern Mediterranean. Over time, navies and naval combat became crucial features of Greek warfare. Yet warships and their personnel still ranked lower in the estimation of Greek society, which put more of a premium on the bravery and toughness of soldiers than on the skill and agility of sailors. The Spartans displayed the mentality best, perhaps: their navarch Lysander and his fleet contributed most to the collapse of Athenian power, yet he held his position because he was barely regarded as a true Spartan citizen and his status was less than that of the officers in Sparta’s hoplite phalanx. See also: Arts: History; Housing and Community: Infrastructure; Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; Carthage, Wars with; Leagues/Alliances; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Science and Technology: Ships/Shipbuilding FURTHER READING Berthold, R. M. 1984. Rhodes in the Hellenistic Age. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Casson, L. 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cawkwell, G. 2005. The Greek War: The Failure of Persia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Gabrielsen, V. 1994. Financing the Athenian Fleet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hackett, J., ed. 1989. Warfare in the Ancient World. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. Hale, J. R. 2009. Lords of the Sea. New York and London: Penguin. Hanson, V. D. 2005. A War Like No Other. New York: Random House.

Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) Jordan, B. 1975. The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kagan, D. 2004. The Peloponnesian War. London: Penguin. Lazenby, J. F. 2004. The Peloponnesian War: A Military Study. London and New York: Penguin. Morrison, J. S., with J. F. Coates. 1996. Greek and Roman Oared Ships, 399–30 B.C. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Pritchett, W. K. 1971–1991. The Greek State at War. 5 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Strauss, B. 2004. The Battle of Salamis. New York: Simon and Schuster. Tritle, L. A. 2009. A New History of the Peloponnesian War. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

PELOPONNESIAN WAR (431–404 BCE) Following the Greek successes against the invasion forces of Xerxes in the Persian War, Athens assumed leadership of a new alliance, which scholars call the Delian League, committed to further combat against the Persian Empire to maintain Greek freedom. Many of Athens’ former allies during the war, especially the former leader Sparta and its Peloponnesian League, remained bitter about Athenian preeminence and grew concerned about increasing Athenian power across the Greek world; no state had ever sought a Greek empire, but Athens certainly seemed to be doing so. The rising power of Athens set the groundwork for increasing tension and conflict between it and the Peloponnesian League, culminating in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). A series of incidents exacerbated the tensions between Athens and Sparta. The two city-states came to blows for the first time when both got involved in a conflict between Phocis and Doris, two warring communities in central Greece. Athenian and Spartan military forces entered the region to assist their respective allies and encountered each other at Tanagra in 457 BCE, where the Spartan phalanx smashed through the Athenians with heavy losses on both sides; though the combatants withdrew afterward, the Athenians sent their fleet to harass the Peloponnesus, keeping the Spartans occupied while the Athenian army returned to central Greece to secure victory for Phocis. By then, the Athenians had also made their own city virtually impregnable to Spartan attack through the construction of the Long Walls and the reinforcement of other fortifications. Serious losses in their continued war against the Persians did compel them to reduce tensions with Sparta and other Greek states through the so-called Five-Year Peace (451). Yet all-out war with Sparta and the Peloponnesian League loomed as the latter’s growing alarm at the militarism of Athens was given

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more and more credibility by Athenian authoritarianism toward its own allies and acts of aggression against others. Rebellions continued to plague the Delian League under Athenian leadership; the Spartans sent troops to raid Athenian territory in order to protect one such rebel, the city-state of Megara (446). Pericles, then leader in Athens, shrewdly decided to buy time by negotiating a Thirty Years Peace with the Peloponnesian League (which also gave the Athenians time to ruthlessly suppress other rebellious allies and resisters). The allies of Sparta made sure that the latter felt humiliated for abandoning “free” Greek states to the “tyranny” of Athens. Corinth took up this cause most vehemently, as the Athenians seemed bent on constantly provoking and undermining its position across the Greek world, whether by encouraging war between Amphilocian Argos and the Corinthian colony of Ambracia (437–432), involving itself militarily in the long-standing feud between Corinth and its colony at Corcyra (435–433), or besieging its colony at Potidaea for daring to rebel against the Delian League (432–427). When the Athenians added to all this by expelling Megarians from the city and all allied ports and markets, as well as banning their ships and goods, in an effort to destroy Megara economically, the Peloponnesian states insisted to Sparta that Athens was reneging on the Thirty Years Peace and that action must be taken. Sparta threatened the Athenians, who, even though they had no intention of complying with the terms of the Peace unless it profited them, nonetheless offered to arbitrate the disputes with Corinth and Megara; the Spartans insisted, however, that Athens must once and for all recognize the “autonomy” of all Greek states, and the Corinthians led other Peloponnesians in arguing vehemently for war against expansionist Athens. Once again, a war in central Greece would draw both sides into actual conflict. In 431 BCE, when the Thebans launched an attack against the rival state of Plataea, the latter, long-time ally of Athens, received Athenian military assistance; the Thebans responded by calling in Peloponnesian aid, and the forces of the Peloponnesian League invaded Attica. Athenian countermeasures proved ineffective, so its people took refuge within the city and its Long Walls, while the Spartans continued to ravage the Athenian countryside and the Athenian fleet continued to raid Peloponnesian ports. Meanwhile, Athenian forces starved Potidaea into surrender and defeated Ambracia, but lost Corcyra to civil war and Plataea to Spartan siege. New operations soon followed. The Athenian fleet and Peloponnesian ground forces collided at Pylos-Sphacteria (425), where the former eventually surrounded the latter, attacked them, and forced Sparta to negotiate for the corpses of its fallen

Politics and Warfare: Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE)

warriors. Next, Athenian ground troops attempted a pincer-maneuver against Sparta’s Boeotian allies (424), which led instead to Athenian defeat in the Battle of Delium, where 17,000 Boeotians ploughed into 7,000 Athenians with terrible loss of life. Meanwhile, Spartans gained control of the Athenian colony at Amphipolis in northern Greece (424–422) and held it, despite two relief expeditions from Athens. These campaigns proved the war to be a sort of stalemate and convinced both sides to negotiate an end to hostilities. In the so-called Peace of Nicias or Fifty Year Peace (421), they agreed to restore captured places and especially prisoners of war to one another, and, of course, refrain from further conflict. An interlude ensued for the next six years, during which Sparta had to defend its new relationship with Athens to its own allies, who sought a victory over Athens. Both the Athenians and the Spartans were in fact challenged now by a third league composed of disaffected Peloponnesian states and the Boeotians; both Athens and Sparta were regarded by this third alliance as enemies of Greek freedom. Despite the victory of Spartan forces over those of this new league at Mantinea (418), disaffection with Sparta remained unresolved. Furthermore, Athenian aggressiveness in foreign policy remained unabated. The Delian League now intervened on the side of Segesta in its war against Selinus, both on the island of Sicily, in an effort to expand Athenian influence westward and cut off potential supplies to the Peloponnesians in case of future conflict. The so-called Sicilian Expedition (415–413) saw a considerable armada, filled with ground troops, dispatched from Athens against Syracuse, principal ally of Selinus and friendly with Sparta. Most Sicilian Greeks opposed the Athenian presence; initial Athenian successes against Syracuse were nullified by the strategic errors of the Athenian commanders and later by the arrival of Peloponnesian reinforcements. Despite the efforts of relief forces from Athens, the Syracusans destroyed the Athenian fleet and the Athenian ground troops found themselves repeatedly defeated while attempting to withdraw from the battle zone. Finally, almost their entire force was surrounded and captured; many died. In the midst of the Sicilian Expedition, the Athenians made the mistake of embroiling themselves on the side of Argos in its war against Sparta in the Peloponnese (414); Athenian naval raids of the coastline were met with Spartan invasion of Attica. This time, the Spartans seized and fortified territory at Decelea (only fifteen miles from Athens itself ), ratcheting up their ravaging forays on news of the disaster to Athenian forces in Sicily, as well as assembling a fleet of warships (with Persian support) to “free” the “subjects of Athens” from the Hellespont to Rhodes; many important members of the Delian League saw their chance to break from Athenian control.

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The remaining years of the Peloponnesian War were marked by attack and counterattack at sea, mostly off the coast of Turkey. Eventually, the Spartans hit upon the key strategy of cutting off the essential supplies of grain and timber imported to Athens from the Black Sea region; they gained control of the Hellespont, through which these supplies flowed, and also blockaded Athens itself by sea and land. In 404, the Athenian government negotiated for peace with Sparta and its allies; the Thebans and Corinthians demanded the execution of all Athenian males and  the enslavement of the rest, as Athens more than once had done to enemy states. The Spartans insisted, however, that Athens be spared all this, that the Athenians agree to have the “same friends and enemies” as Sparta, dismantle their fortifications, reduce their fleet to minimal, and give up all their overseas possessions. The desperate Athenians agreed, and the Spartan admiral Lysander declared the “Liberation of Greece.” Greek victory over the Persians in the early fifth century BCE created an enlarged sense of confidence and the desire for an enlarged sphere of power among the Greeks, especially among the Athenians. Greeks had always provoked one another into war locally, but never before had the goals and the stakes been as high as during the Peloponnesian War; it stretched across the Greek world and unleashed among the various rival states acts of hostility and atrocity unlike any they had seen before. The Peloponnesian War truly became a Greek “world war.” See also: Arts: Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Housing and Community: Fortifications; Politics and Warfare: City-States; Civil War; Diplomacy; Hoplite Soldiers; Leagues/ Alliances; Navies; Persian Wars (490–478 BCE) FURTHER READING Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Romilly, J. 1963. Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism. London: Blackwell. Hackett, J., ed. 1989. Warfare in the Ancient World. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. Hanson, V. D. 2005. A War Like No Other. New York: Random House. Kagan, D. 2004. The Peloponnesian War. London: Penguin. Lazenby, J. F. 2004. The Peloponnesian War: A Military War. London and New York: Penguin. Powell, A. 2001. Athens and Sparta. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Pritchett, W. K. 1971–1991. The Greek State at War. 5 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Tritle, L. A. 2009. A New History of the Peloponnesian War. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Van Wees, H., ed. 2000. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales.

Politics and Warfare: Persian Wars (490–478 BCE)

PERSIAN WARS (490–478 BCE) The ancient Greeks and Persians entered into a number of armed conflicts against one another from the late sixth century BCE until the conquest of the Persian Empire by the Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, in the early fourth century BCE. Within this span of time, Greeks came to identify a specific set of engagements as what we today call the Persian Wars, that is, those engagements taking place between 490 and 478 BCE. The Persian kings from the start encountered Greek resistance against absorption into their empire. The forces of Cyrus the Great came down hard in retaliation upon the Greeks of Priene, Teos, and Phocaea; his son Cambyses continued the expansion across the Aegean Islands; and his successor Darius’ troops annihilated the male population on Samos, captured the islands of Chios and Lesbos, and expanded into Scythia, Thrace, and Macedonia. Persian governors or satraps imposed tribute on the Greeks and installed pro-Persian dictators or tyrants to maintain order among the unruly. The Persian presence in the Greek world upset the traditional balance of power within and among the Greek communities of Asia Minor (western Turkey); heavy tribute and deportations brought economic decline; the Greeks truly began at this time to develop the prejudiced attitude that the Persian Empire was inhabited by “barbarians.” Worse still, the Persians could not even control the ambitious tyrants they imposed, as the actions of Aristagoras at Miletus bear witness. Fearing the fate of his uncle, who had been imprisoned by King Darius for expansionist adventures, Aristagoras turned to instigate the Ionian Revolt (499–494 BCE) against Darius, ultimately a failed attempt at Greek liberation. The Ionian Greeks received some aid from their cousins across the sea in mainland Greece, just as they had in previous skirmishes against Cambyses. The Corinthians and Spartans had helped back then, but this time it was the Athenians who joined the fight. Their involvement truly opened up the phase of the GrecoPersian conflict known as the Persian Wars; from this point onward, the Persians’ main target in Greece would always be Athens. Darius sought recompense from the Greek mainlanders for their assistance to rebellious Greeks over the years; his ambassadors in Greece demanded “earth and water” as tokens of cooperation (really of submission). A number of Greek communities complied, but the Spartans and the Athenians, respectively, abused and killed the king’s representatives, a tremendous insult. In Sparta especially this behavior created internal troubles, exacerbating the rift between the two kings, Cleomenes and Demaratus. The former removed the latter from power and forced him into exile; Demaratus fled for safety to the Persians, becoming another of their key sources of military intelligence, along with the exiled Athenian leader Hippias.

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In 490 BCE, the Persian king sent a strike force of perhaps twenty thousand troops, guided by Hippias, to attack resistant Greek communities across the Aegean, finishing at Athens. There, they landed in the harbor of Marathon (named for the fennel plants that grew in abundance). Athens received assistance from the small nearby town of Plataea, which sent all of its six hundred hoplites to join the approximately nine thousand Athenians commanded by Callimachus; they got no help from the Spartans, though they did ask for some, because the latter were busy with an important religious festival. For about a week, the Persians delayed any movement, keeping close to their ships; they were awaiting local support promised by Hippias, which never materialized. When the Persians finally commenced the attack, their Greek opponents, inspired by the general Miltiades, rushed across from the higher ground and allowed the Persians to break through their center, but then encircled the over-­ confident Persians with their wings. In this carefully arranged trap, over six thousand Persian light-infantry fell, compared to less than two hundred Greeks. Chased back to their ships, the surviving Persian troops sailed their fleet around the peninsula of Attica in an effort to launch another attack at the harbor of Phaleron. The Greeks, however, rushed overland from Marathon, in fact arriving at Phaleron even before the Persians. Out-numbered nearly two to one, the Greek hoplite phalanx, thanks to its discipline and timing, and to its longer swords than the Persian light-infantry had, brought down a stunning blow on the usually victorious Darius. His son Xerxes followed up with a war of revenge against all of Greece, especially Athens. He launched an invasion like no one had ever seen, personally leading a huge land force (estimated by scholars at something like one hundred thousand men) and some twelve hundred ships, all guided by Demaratus of Sparta. He encountered resistance from a relatively few Greek communities who formed a temporary alliance in 481 BCE. They chose the Spartans to lead them against the Persian onslaught, trusting in that city’s superior phalanx and control of southern Greece; Athens took a strong second-place, especially with the development of its new fleet of warships. In the five battles of this “Great Persian War” (480–478 BCE), the Greeks attempted to neutralize their enemy’s significant advantages in numbers and resources. At Thermopylae (summer 480), for example, approximately five thousand Greeks tried to hold the main north-south land route through Greece, a fiftyfoot pass between the mountains and the sea, against roughly seventy thousand Persians. Disciplined phalanx tactics, and the tight space, worked in the Greeks’ favor for two days, until the Persians discovered a bypass route over the mountains that came down behind the Greek position. They were then able to utilize this to catch the Greeks in a pincer maneuver; most of the Greeks retreated, perhaps at

Politics and Warfare: Persian Wars (490–478 BCE)

the orders of the Spartan king Leonidas, who died resisting the Persians along with about one thousand Greek soldiers. Meanwhile, not far away, at Cape Artemisium, the Greek fleet similarly managed to keep the Persian ships busy for two days with carefully staged assaults at dusk, until the former withdrew on news of the loss at Thermopylae. The Greeks’ first two efforts at neutralizing Persian advantages had only succeeded in part; their last three efforts would all succeed beyond their expectations. While the Persian land army marched down into Athenian territory to follow up its victory at Thermopylae by laying waste to the abandoned city of Athens itself, the Athenian fleet and other Greek allied ships took up position in the narrows between the Athenian coast and the island of Salamis, where so many Athenian civilians had taken refuge; the Athenian master-mind Themistocles then used a message of misinformation to lure the Persians into dividing their fleet (which had already been seriously reduced by severe storms) and sending many of their ships to the other side of Salamis. When the Athenians and their allies from Aegina maneuvered against the remaining portion of the Persian fleet in waters so familiar to the Greek sailors and so unfamiliar to their enemies, the Greeks scored a major victory. Reeling from this unexpected defeat, the roughly sixty thousand Persians withdrew and regrouped in central Greece. In the summer of 479, over one hundred thousand allied Greek ground troops moved into that region under the command of the Spartan Pausanias. The opposing armies delayed attacking one another for ten days until the Persian cavalry maneuvered to harass the Greeks’ position in the hills near the town of Plataea, while the Persian infantry cut off Greek access to limited water supplies in the area. After twelve days of this, the Greeks attempted a nighttime retreat in three divisions, each pursued by portions of the Persian army. In the ensuing Battle of Plataea, the Persians’ shield-wall and barrages of arrows failed against the heavy bronze-armored troops and longer spears of the Greek side. Meanwhile, the Greek fleet, also under Spartan command, caught up with the remnants of the Persian fleet (which had departed from Attica after their losses at Salamis) across the Aegean at Mycale; aided by ships from the Greek islands of Samos and Chios, the Greeks destroyed the Persian ships, landed their armed forces, and, on the same day as Plataea, assaulted the camp of the Persian fleet, securing another Greek victory. The Spartan commander Leotychidas declared the freedom of all Greeks, including those in Asia Minor, from the grip of the Persian Empire. Persian mercenaries, not equipped to fend off the Greek weapons, superiortrained Greek hoplites, clever and innovative Greek commanders, tactics, and strategy, as well as the exploitation of Persian mistakes, and sheer luck brought success and fame to the Greeks in the Persian Wars. For Greeks everywhere, and

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especially for the Athenians and the Spartans, victory ushered in a new era in their history, a time of great confidence and great achievements in many ways, as well as a time of great competition, struggle, and destruction. See also: Politics and Warfare: Arms and Armor; City-States; Diplomacy; Hoplite Soldiers; Leagues/Alliances; Monarchies; Navies; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) FURTHER READING Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cawkwell, G. 2005. The Greek War: The Failure of Persia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Green, P. 1996. The Greco-Persian Wars. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Krentz, P. 2010. The Battle of Marathon. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pritchett, W. K. 1971–1991. The Greek State at War. 5 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sekunda, N. 1992. The Persian Army, 560–330 BC. Oxford: Osprey. Strauss, B. 2004. The Battle of Salamis. New York: Simon and Schuster.

PHALANX In the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, the Greek city-states developed tactics of war different from those utilized in the past, when single combat among warriors might have been sufficient. They needed to make maximum use of the new hoplite soldiers and to protect these soldiers against catastrophic losses on the battlefield. If massed together as close as possible, the heavily armored hoplites could move against an enemy force like a human tank, applying pressure against the enemy until the latter gave way. A hoplite’s armor could leave him vulnerable at his back and on his sides, though. In addition, each hoplite was so heavily weighted down by his weapons and armor that he might not easily maneuver in isolation, nor escape quickly from the field on his own (like horsemen could). The Greeks developed the phalanx as a solution. The earliest literary testimony for its use comes from the poetry of Homer (that is, from at least the middle of the eighth century BCE) and the oldest visual evidence from a famous piece of painted pottery (the Chigi Vase dated to around 650 BCE). Before the Persian Wars, evidence suggests that the phalanx had no clear ranks or files; afterward, it developed into a much more massed and tight formation. Typically, hoplites placed themselves eight to sixteen men deep in each file or column of the phalanx and varied the width of its ranks or rows according to the

Politics and Warfare: Phalanx

An ancient Greek phalanx formation as depicted on the Chigi Vase from Corinth, sixth century BCE. Now in the Villa Giulia at Rome, this is perhaps the most famous image in ancient art of Greek hoplites lined up in their traditional ranks, marching into battle to the rhythmic sound of pipes. (DEA/G. Nimatallah/De Agostini/Getty Images)

number of fighting men they had available; a phalanx could, then, stand very thin or very broad. Assembling a phalanx like this took little time for the Spartans, since they were always at military readiness. Two of their smallest units, the syssitia or barracks consisting of some fifteen Spartan hoplites each, combined to form a miniphalanx, the enomotia; four enomotiae formed a pentekostys, four pentekostes a lochos, two lochoi a mora. The full phalanx thus consisted of hundreds of men, divided into six morai. No Greek state had so organized a hoplite phalanx as the Spartans. They enforced a rigorous chain of command across the units of the phalanx thanks to their strong communal attitudes and camaraderie, perhaps best symbolized in their famous red cloaks and shields marked with the letter lambda (for Lacedaemon, the formal name of the Spartan territory), a rare example from the ancient Greek world of something akin to uniform dress.

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The Spartans also made sure that throughout their phalanx, soldiers of different ages were distributed. In this way, young learned from old and the strength of experience benefited the entire phalanx. Furthermore, the Spartans experimented with formations other than the traditional tight rectangle; for instance, their commander Brasidas made use of a hollow square formation during the Peloponnesian War. Other city-states placed all their young men in the forefront of the phalanx, with the older, more experienced veterans in the rear as the troops of final resort. Athenian hoplites were usually thus arrayed, for instance. The Athenian government divided its male citizens into forty-two age groups (beginning with e­ ighteen-year olds, then nineteen-year olds, twenty-year olds, and so on). The duty of defending the city-state during peacetime fell to the two youngest age groups, who might share this responsibility during wartime with the men fifty years and older. All the remaining age groups, that is, those between the ages of twenty and fifty were eligible for combat duty. To assemble their phalanx, the Athenians called up men by age group, beginning with the twenty-year-olds; the youngest ten or fifteen age groups served as swift running-out troops at the forefront, to counter an enemy’s charge and create disarray, while the rest held the line against enemy attack. Since they rarely needed to call up older men to fill out the phalanx, though, most of the Athenian fighting forces consisted of men in their twenties and thirties at any one time. The Athenians also arrayed fellow demesmen and tribesmen alongside one another in lochoi, combining these to form a total of ten taxeis of varied strengths. This method served the Athenians well by reinforcing a sense of personal safety among men who knew one another well and a sense of patriotic mission among men with whom one also voted and held public office. Regardless of the differences among city-states in terms of the organization of their phalanxes, one thing they shared in common: military service was regarded as a duty that a male citizen could not opt out of. There could be no conscientious objection to serving one’s polis; only physical or mental incapacity, or specific debarment because of offenses against the state, were grounds for not serving. Failure to perform one’s military duty when drafted, cowardice, dereliction, or desertion while on military duty, were all punishable criminal offenses across the Greek world. Hard as it is to believe from a modern viewpoint, traditional warfare with the hoplite phalanx demanded engagement on open fields of flat ground rather than in more difficult terrain (Greece has very little of the former and much more of the latter). Two opposing phalanxes accepted the challenge to engage in battle by arraying themselves face-to-face on that flat-land. Typically, each made sacrifices to the gods and prayed for the support of the latter in the coming onslaught; they

Politics and Warfare: Phalanx

might sing paeans to Apollo and shout the war cry of Ares. Some phalanxes had very particular pre-battle customs, like the Spartans, for example, who polished and garlanded their equipment, and combed out their long hair. As the Greeks employed no flags or standards (like the Persians did), flute players among the Greek ranks kept time for the soldiers as they marched, while trumpeters delivered signals for all to hear. The ranks of hoplites locked themselves shoulder-to-shoulder, moving forward against the enemy in a quite disciplined fashion. Once battle commenced, the ultimate goal of any phalanx was to push (oˉthismos) their opponents into giving ground and retreating (trope¯). The victors would erect an inviolable symbol of success, a tropaion, or trophy, at the spot where the gods had turned their enemies; then heralds from each side would negotiate a truce so that each phalanx could claim the corpses of their fallen comrades. For centuries, the Greek phalanxes fought thus, but modification and innovation began in the fifth century BCE. At the Battle of Delium (424 BCE) during the Peloponnesian War, for instance, Athenian forces faced a phalanx with a twist. Their opponents, the Thebans and their Boeotian allies, had amassed a phalanx twenty-five men deep, instead of the usual eight. When this thick formation plowed into the Athenian one, the latter suffered the worst hoplite defeat ever seen among Greek states. Some six decades later, the Thebans once again launched a different sort of phalanx against their opponents, this time the Spartans. At Leuctra (371 BCE), roughly 11,000 Spartan troops faced 7,000 Boeotian infantry organized in three phalanxes of standard size and one extra-large phalanx, the left wing of fifty men deep. The superior Boeotian cavalry kept their enemy’s left wing busy, while the three Boeotian phalanxes drew out the enemy’s center, with light-armed skirmishers harassing them out front. Then, the Thebans’ left-wing phalanx smashed through the Spartan right, with the special forces of Thebes, the Sacred Band, taking advantage of the Spartans in disarray. Nearly 1,000 hoplites fell on the Spartan right, including 400 of the 700 Spartan citizens there and their leader, King Cleombrotus as well. Before the Persian Wars, Greek phalanxes had frequently mixed diverse troops with the heavily armored infantry; as a consequence of the Peloponnesian War, such diverse troops made their reappearance on the battlefield, though usually as separate units. Brasidas placed light-armed soldiers as a sort of reserve in the middle of his hollow square formation, stationing his picked men (probably veteran troops), along with himself, at the rear to ward off enemy attacks; Epaminondas, the Theban tactician, had devised the battle plan employed at Leuctra, which countered the Spartans with cavalry, light-armed skirmishers, and complex phalanx tactics.

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Light-armed troops (referred to as psiloi, peltastai, hamippoi, etc.) would have carried a variety of weapons and armor depending on their financial circumstances, but always less than the full panoply. Few details survive about how such light infantry were organized, but it seems they tended to maneuver in open array, flexibly and more mobile than the hoplites, in pre-arranged drill formations that allowed for easier skirmishing. Cavalry may have marched within the looser phalanxes common before the fifth century BCE; later, they were separated into their own wings to guard the flanks and rear of the phalanx of hoplites. By the middle of the fifth century in Athens, for example, the cavalry corps consisted of as many as 1,000 armed with spear or lance plus some 200 mounted archers. The state loaned money to the troopers to purchase their warhorses and subsidized the care and feeding of the animals. Cavalrymen were often from the younger age groups and often from the aristocratic families, who had much experience in rearing and riding horses; most probably retired after about a decade of service. In the late fifth and into the fourth centuries, certain city-states included elite hoplites among the traditional militia men of the phalanx, professional soldiers essentially who had undergone training as “special forces” (known as logades at Argos or epilektoi at Athens). The Spartans already had begun this trend with their 300 best and most athletic warriors, who often guarded the kings; the Thebans perfected it perhaps with their famous Sacred Band. Thus, the Greek phalanx came to contain soldiers of varied experience, training, and armament, assisted by specialized units. The Syracusans made the best use of such mixed troops, and other Greeks imitated their example or modified it, especially during the Peloponnesian War. This conflict taught all the combatants the benefits of raids and skirmishes, as well as street fighting and other sorts of urban warfare. Together with citizen forces, noncitizens also assisted the phalanx. For instance, the Spartans required neighboring Greek populations who had been subordinated by them, the so-called perioikoi, to fight at their side; how these other hoplites were organized remains undetermined. The Athenians demanded that the resident aliens or metics in their community perform military service to the state, either in subordinate roles to the Athenian hoplites or in units segregated from the hoplites; metics were excluded, however, from prestigious cavalry service. The Macedonians developed the most complex phalanxes. A Macedonian phalanx allowed greater command and control of large operations because it consisted of at least four and as many as six subdivisions (chiliarchia of 1,024, pentakosiarchia of 512, syntagma of 256, taxis of 128, tetrarchia of 64, dilochia of 32 men). The first eleven ranks often had little or no armor, but carried the sarissa or long pike instead of the standard lance and elevated it as part of a huge protective screen

Politics and Warfare: Phalanx

of pikes; these soldiers required training and cohesion greater than most hoplites. Turning with the sarissa reduced maneuverability; this and other vulnerabilities of the formation, especially at the rear and the flanks, made light-armed support troops and protective cavalry wings a must. Still, the Macedonian phalanx with its bristling forest of pikes, especially in the tight packing-together called synaspismos, made it an excellent shock force, capable of opening critical gaps in the hoplite phalanxes of other states. With the advent of the Macedonian phalanx came the advent of real logistics and real generalship in the Greek army. Previously, only the Spartans, with their passion for state organization of the military, had made any sort of logistical arrangements for their phalanxes; most Greek communities expected their armies to forage and fend for themselves in terms of equipment and supplies. The huge armies of Macedonian leaders like Alexander the Great and his successors could not be so laissez-faire about such matters. Outside of Sparta, with its strict chain of command that passed orders and rallied the troops, the social and political elites of most city-states provided the generals, typically voted into office by the troops, which meant that they frequently had no more training or expertise than the soldiers under their command. They led by example on the battle-field, living like one of the men and proving themselves as warriors (and through persuasive speeches) in order to maintain order (eutaxia). The Peloponnesian War, with its extended, multistate operations, began to demand greater command and control and thus more generalship, a trend which exploded under the even greater operations of the Macedonians. Aside from the famous wars between Corinth and Megara and between Chalcis and Eretria in the eighth century BCE, and the conquests conducted by the Spartans in the seventh, few engagements in Greek history had been pitched battles of phalanxes. Still, the ancient Greeks generally valued the cooperative spirit and cohesive ethos that the phalanx as a military formation certainly inculcated. Even as tactics evolved and mixed troops combined to win victories in the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods, the Greeks did not abandon the phalanx. Even when Greek states began to hire more mercenaries, the criticisms of such troops typically spoke to traditional values: unlike reliance on mercenaries, it was argued that the phalanx of hoplites placed self-sacrifice ahead of self-interest, protected the autonomy of one’s polis, and encouraged a truly active citizenry. See also: Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Aristocracies; Arms and Armor; Athenian Constitution; Citizenship; City-States; Democracies; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Spartan Constitution; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status

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The World of Ancient Greece FURTHER READING Bugh, G. R. 1988. The Horsemen of Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Connolly, P. 1998. Greece and Rome at War. 2nd ed. London: Greenhill Books. Hanson, V. D. 1989. The Western Way of War. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hanson, V. D., ed. 1991. Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience. London and New York: Routledge. Hanson, V. D. 1999. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Keegan, J. 1976. The Face of Battle. New York: Penguin. Keegan, J. 1987. The Mask of Command. New York: Penguin. Parke, H. W. 1970. Greek Mercenary Soldiers. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pritchett, W. K. 1971–1991. The Greek State at War. 5 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sekunda, N. V. 1984. The Army of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Osprey. Spence, I. G. 1993. The Cavalry of Classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trundle, M. 2004. Greek Mercenaries from the Late Archaic Period to Alexander. London and New York: Routledge. Van Wees, H., ed. 2000. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales. Van Wees, H. 2004. Greek Warfare. Myths and Realities. London: Duckworth.

PLATO, POLITICAL THEORY OF Plato’s understanding of human nature, developed along the lines of questioning established by his mentor Socrates, led him to produce theories about how human society should ideally be organized and under what sort of leadership, in other words, theories about the ideal polis. As is well known, these political theories have had tremendous influence over the course of Western civilization, but they also had an impact on his own Greek culture, providing many ancient Greeks with points of debate on the subject of politics. Plato came to regard the supreme goal of human life as the attainment of virtue, achieved through the balance of one’s essential characteristics (reason, will, desires), with the best of these characteristics (reason) in a dominant position over the others. Thinking, questioning, the logical pursuit of answers thus became for him the highest activities of humankind and, by extension, the ideal activities of humankind’s leaders. In an ideal world, which he especially envisioned in the work called Politeia or Republic, such leaders would be referred to as Guardians; modern scholars and students tend to call them “philosopher-rulers.” Their ultimate

Politics and Warfare: Plato, Political Theory of

purpose would be to create a virtuous environment in which virtuous individuals could thrive. As assistants they would have the Auxiliaries, enforcers of the Guardians’ will. The rest of the population, the De¯mos or masses, would provide the labor, especially manual labor, necessary for the day-to-day functioning of society (agriculture, crafts, household work, and so on). This social structure has appeared rigid and elitist to many observers across the generations, as it did also to some ancient Greeks, but that is an unfair assessment. Plato believed he was being eminently realistic in noting that every person is not equally cut out to rule in the interests of the common good, in the interests of virtue; many people have a tendency toward selfishness that must be curtailed, for example, while others have greater capacity for compassion and understanding than their peers, which should be encouraged. Plato sought to harvest the talents of each and every individual, regardless of gender or status, and cultivate them to do their best in the interests of self and community; this would mean that, at a young age, individuals would be identified for and “tracked” into certain occupations, including that of Guardian. It did not mean, however, that the child of someone in a “humble” occupation, such as a carpenter, could not be tapped as a future Guardian; again, the goal was to identify natural talent wherever it could be found. Plato expected a great deal from the members of his ideal community. Even among the Guardians, after a boy or girl had been chosen for leadership training, their higher status would not be guaranteed (as it was in most Greek societies simply by birth or wealth) unless they successfully survived weeding-out processes in their twentieth and thirtieth years; they had to complete decades in the highly supervised training necessary in physical fitness, warfare, mathematics, astronomy and other sciences, and especially logical analysis in order to perfect their natural gifts. This notion of perfecting was key; only at the age of fifty, after years of education as well as experience in minor military and administrative positions, would Guardians become Guardians, entrusted with full responsibility over their government and society. The only true analog to these sorts of expectations from individuals was in the religious cults of the Greek world; Plato’s philosopher-rulers were to be selected, prepared, and undergo rites of passage not unlike devout initiates. Plato’s utopian vision did possess a serious flaw, then, from a modern perspective: individual freedom to choose any profession or course of life, even an “imperfect” or “improper” one by Plato’s standards, would not be permitted. Even a Guardian, as long as properly qualified, would have to accept the burden of being a Guardian, whether he or she wanted to or not, because it was best for the community and fulfilled one’s own potentialities. Plato’s ruthless sense of justice demanded that each citizen do his or her allotted task. Sentimentality also could not enter into such politically correct decisions. Plato saw no place in his political theory, for instance, for the traditional family unit as

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seen in his native Athens. No matter their emotional attachments, families simply did not function always and everywhere in the best interest of the community; that needed to be changed by the replacement of families with the community or state itself. That is, men and women would come together only for the production of offspring and those children would be raised by nurses and teachers appointed from the community by the Guardians. There would be no more family property, family feuds, or family traditions to interfere with the cooperation of all individuals of the society; in a sense, the Guardians would replace parents. Plato had no intention of developing a political theory that could only play out in story-books, however; despite his frequent reputation in modern times as an idealistic dreamer, he, in fact, took a very pragmatic, hard-headed approach to the politics of his day, which he regarded very much as a farce, noting especially its myriad failings. He saw that in the Athenian democracy of his own time, for example, the voters took many decisions without sufficient study or reflection, motivated by emotional rhetoric more than by reason, guided by vicious, power-hungry individuals who played the voting public for fools. Athenians, like the famous general Pericles, may have regarded their political system as superior to all others in the Greek world, but Plato had higher expectations and saw the need for the total reform and overhaul of society as then constituted and politics as then practiced. He admired more the Spartan system, which left most decision-making in the hands of quite a small elite, supposedly of superior caliber to all other citizens. Even there, however, leaders were not necessarily chosen for any particular qualifications; rationality, logic, and intelligence still did not count as the essential criteria for leadership, as Plato believed they must in order to prevent immature, amateurish, and foolish government. Spartan overconfidence in their own ways, just like that of their Athenian rivals, was misplaced, in Plato’s view. To scrap the contemporary forms of Greek government such as these and implement his ideas from the ground up would have been a monumental undertaking for a philosopher, and thus it remained for Plato only a theory; ideal ends were much simpler to conceive than practical means. In his many dialogues on political change, he had devised some sort of starting point: openly hashing out problems through intelligent and public debate. Yet it seems that later in his life Plato came to worry that identifying and cultivating an abundance of his sort of philosopherrulers might not be possible in all societies. In that case, an alternative source of wisdom, and control, had to be found that could survive philosopher-rulers when not enough of them were around. This could be had through strong laws, the products of even just one Guardian’s expertise and reason put in place to maintain order and to cultivate virtue. If a society could be turned by a philosopher-ruler to the veneration of his or her code of laws, if citizens could come to respect that code

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as much as they respected the leader who created it, then a long-term politics of virtue could be sustained over time. Critical choices on the part of the community could then be always reflections or manifestations of the “eternal” laws and their fundamental principles. In understanding this, we might consider the importance of constitutions in the functioning of many modern governments; they provide an essential pattern of rules, not to be deviated from in their fundamentals. Most ancient Greek communities, including Plato’s Athens, did not possess written constitutions; they had no political ballast to keep them on a steady course, except for certain traditions, which they could just as easily discard as follow. Plato’s conception of having a foundation of essential, immutable laws led his fellow Greeks to debate the notion of constitution in our sense of the term and, of course, led to the creation of written constitutions in modern times. We are indebted to his political theory for this, as well as to his notion, however imperfectly achieved, that expertise matters, or at least should matter, in political decision-making, rather than family connections and popularity. Some of Plato’s own pupils, as well as others influenced by his ideas, made efforts to put his theories into practice. Most famously, Dion (d. 354 BCE) and Dionysius II (d. 343 BCE) of Syracuse, Hermias of Atarnaeus (d. 341 BCE), and Demetrius of Phaleron (d. c. 280 BCE) implemented reforms along the lines of Platonic goals in existing political systems under their authority; their examples, though not entirely successful, still continued as models for government reform during the Hellenistic period. So Plato’s insistence on the moral regeneration of society and the state continued its appeal long after his death, especially among an intellectual elite within the Greek and Roman worlds who continued to seek new “guardians” operating through laws for the greatest common good. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Skeptics; Philosophy, Stoics; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Athenian Constitution; Democracies; Monarchies; Spartan Constitution; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Science and Technology: Education FURTHER READING Barker, E. 1960. Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors. London: Methuen. Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cartledge, P. 2009. Political Thought in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harte, V. and M. Lane, eds. 2013. Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Kraut, R., ed. 1992. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ober, J. 2001. Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Von Fritz, K. 1954. The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity. New York: Columbia University Press.

POLITICAL THEORY. See ARISTOTLE, POLITICAL THEORY OF; PLATO, POLITICAL THEORY OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS During the Bronze Age in Greece (c. 1700–1100 BCE), public officials, if one could even call them such, consisted of the retainers of Mycenaean kings and the nobles who collaborated with them; during the Dark Age (c. 1100–800 BCE) and early Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), aristocratic councils executed their decisions through select aristocratic personnel and their retainers. Public officials in the sense that modern people would recognize, that is, servants of their community charged with the responsibility of carrying out its will, emerged in the Greek world with the emergence of the polis. Among the most important public officials of any given Greek city-state were those tasked with military command. Supreme military commanders went by different titles in different parts of Greece and at different times in its history. For instance, in fourth-century BCE Thessaly, the supreme commander was called the tagos, whereas in Athens of the sixth century BCE, he was called the polemarchos, and in the federal leagues of central and southern Greece in the third century BCE, he was referred to as strate¯gos. The story of public officialdom in the military sphere is most full for Athens. By the time of the Persian Wars, the Athenian polemarch had come to serve as supreme commander only in a technical sense; much of his military duties had been, and would be, taken over by the board of ten generals, or strate¯goi (leaving the polemarch with largely judicial duties having to do with resident aliens and foreigners). Every spring, the Athenian ekkle¯sia (assembly of voters) elected the strate¯goi, at first one from each of the Athenian tribes, later without reference to tribal affiliation; they served for a period of twelve months from mid-summer to mid-summer and, unlike most other public officials (at Athens and many other Greek states), were allowed to hold multiple terms. Athenian men who wanted to be strate¯goi volunteered themselves for the position; after passing a form of scrutiny at the level of the deme and the tribe, the latter nominated them for general election.

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Except under extraordinary conditions, the ten Athenian generals shared equality in status, which meant that any decisions of the group had to be determined by majority vote; chairmanship of the board was determined by daily rotation. They conducted drafts and levies of troops, presided over courts-martial, advised the government on military matters (especially making frequent speeches and proposals for laws or decrees before the assembly of voters), and commanded forces in the field and fighting ships at sea. Not all of the generals served in the field at the same time or, understandably, in the same locales; they received from the ekkle¯sia their assignments and their troop allotments, sometimes sharing command of field armies (thus, no strate¯gos ever commanded alone the contingent from his own tribe, for example) and fleets. As the officials most intimately involved in running the essential military affairs of the state, the ten strate¯goi had more influence than any other public officials in Athens; witness simply the career and prestige of the famous Pericles, elected strate¯gos fifteen times in a row! The premium ancient Greeks placed on military expertise is reflected in the election annually of other military officials at Athens, besides the strate¯goi. These included the ten infantry colonels (taxiarchoi), the two commanders of the cavalry (hipparchoi) and the ten colonels (  phylarchoi) who served under them, as well as the ten cavalry recruiters. Eleven men were elected annually to supervise the ephebes, the youth corps of the Athenian military, as were the two ephebic trainers. Also elected was the military treasurer and the ten helle¯notamiai, the treasurers of the Athenian empire. Across the Greek mainland and Aegean Islands, many communities had high public officials called archons (rulers). The polemarch served as one of the nine annual archons in Athens, for example. Although originally appointed by the aristocratic Areopagus Council and later elected, by the middle of the fifth century BCE, the Athenian archons and their secretary (often referred to as a tenth archon) were selected by lot from men of the top three property classes, like the members of the Council of 500 (a deliberative body which represented a cross-section of the Athenian electorate); in addition, each archon had to come from a different tribe, so that each of the ten tribes of Athens would be equally represented among them. No individual could serve more than once as an archon. In addition to the polemarch, there was also the Basileus archoˉn, who supervised religious matters of the community, the archoˉn epoˉnymos, who supervised the general administration of the city, and six thesmothetai (statute setters), who served as presiding officials in the law courts. Use of the lottery system in selection of one archon from each tribe eliminated significant electioneering conflicts. During the fifth century BCE, this method seems to have been adopted by a number of Greek communities; it became the paradigm for many administrative boards as the Athenians established positions

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for over 500 other public officials. By the fourth century BCE, many of these positions did not even have property qualifications any longer, allowing even more individuals to serve. In the financial sphere, there were ten treasurers (tamiai) of Athena, ten poˉle¯tai (public lessors and auctioneers of confiscated property), ten receivers and distributors of public funds (apodektai), ten auditors (logistai) and their ten assistants. In the marketplace, ten metronomoi checked that proper weights and measures were used in all transactions; ten agoranomoi maintained the marketplace in general and especially upheld quality standards; ten (later thirty-five) sitophylakes kept the prices of grain and grain products, and the supply of grain, stable. In the urban environment generally, the ten astynomoi made sure that Athens remained clean and uncluttered by building projects, and even regulated the flute girls who played at private parties (suggestive of their moral authority). This is by no means an exhaustive list of the public officials at Athens. Many officials with similar titles and duties existed in other Greek communities. All public officials in Athens entered and left their positions at the same time each year; terms were not staggered. Furthermore, since Athenian law forbade anyone from serving more than once in any particular post (except on the Council of 500 or among the ten strate¯goi), and since they maintained very few permanent staffers to assist them (these typically being public slaves), Athenian officials relied heavily on recorded precedents (papyrus archives kept in the Metroon, bronze and stone inscriptions in public open areas like the agora or the Acropolis) and the experience or advice of their predecessors to fulfill their duties. There would have been many predecessors available to consult, since two to three thousand citizens, about 8 percent of Athenian men, served in some public capacity each year. In addition, perhaps as many as a thousand Athenian public officials operated outside Attica itself, possessing the necessary military, judicial, financial, and other powers to steer the local politics of Athens’ subject allies and to maintain the Athenian empire. Like other Greek city-states, the Athenians developed a scrutiny process for their officials called the dokimasia. It took place after anyone was elected to office or selected by the lottery system in order to determine whether the individual would be allowed to serve. Originally conducted by the Areopagus, later by the Council of 500 (for its own members and the archons) or the thesmothetai and the law courts (for all other officials), the dokimasia consisted of an inquiry to verify that the candidate was of the right age, ancestry, and class status for his new position and to prove that he had never served in the designated office before, had not shirked his military duties, was not held in atimia (public dishonor) by the state, had maintained his family’s shrines and tombs, and cared for and never mistreated his parents, was known to be of trustworthy character, and so on. Witnesses

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confirmed all this and the candidate also had to counter any accusations brought against him by any fellow citizen. In Athens, most public officials did not work under the authority of others. As a result, they were typically not answerable to magistrates of higher rank but rather each answerable to the ekkle¯sia and the Council of 500 through review processes. For instance, the ekkle¯sia voted each month (prytany) on the actions taken by the strate¯goi while in office; the voters could demand the general’s removal from office if necessary and, if abroad, his return to Athens for prosecution. At the conclusion of his term in office, each Athenian official had to present an accounting of his work (euthyna) to the Council of 500, specifically to ten euthynoi (straighteners), selected by lot from among the council members to assess any complaints against the official (especially treacherous charges known as eisangelia, like bribery or embezzlement), and ten logistai, appointed by the Council to audit the official’s use of public funds. If significant problems were found, a case might be drawn up against the official and passed on to the law courts for adjudication. Other Greek communities conducted similar sorts of procedures for purposes of official accountability, some where the assessors themselves could inflict penalties on the spot. Sparta and a number of other Dorian Greek communities had a more streamlined administration than at Athens focused on the public officials known as ephors (ephoroi). Each year, the Spartan assembly of voters (apella) elected the ephors from among all the male citizens as overseers of “order and discipline.” Each month, the ephors swore an oath to follow the laws (which, in Sparta, were unwritten), preserve the privileges of Sparta’s citizens, and support the kings, as long as they abided by the laws. This board of five men handled day-to-day affairs for the city-state and presided at the meetings of the apella, making proposals to it and to the Gerousia (Council of Elders, which they attended but where the two kings of Sparta presided), tried civil cases, reviewed the conduct, and punished the misconduct, of other public officials, received ambassadors, and acted as Sparta’s diplomats abroad. Two ephors usually accompanied and oversaw the Spartan kings on every military campaign in which they engaged, limited royal powers in other ways when at home, and could, in fact, threaten kings with various punishments for noncompliance, place them under arrest, or bring them for trial before the Gerousia. Most significantly, they had ultimate oversight of the agoˉge¯ (the training program for all Spartan youth) and the Spartan army, determining the age groups to call up for service and the objectives of their operations, and ultimate responsibility for holding down the helots, the enslaved populations conquered by the Spartans in southern Greece. The ephors thus enjoyed wide latitude in their powers and even in the development of policy. Despite their limited term of office (no one could serve more than

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once) and the requirement to reach decisions by majority vote among them, the Spartan ephors possessed tremendous authority. A wide array of official positions in the service of the public interest thus had proliferated among the Greeks by the time of the Roman conquest. They had developed administrative mechanisms of some complexity and diversity, but they had also maintained, for the most part, division of duties, limits on the concentration of powers, and restrictions on the establishment of self-interested bureaucracies. This did not necessarily apply to the officials appointed and very well-paid by Greek kings and their ministers in Hellenistic times, but such controls, even where greater attention to expertise and greater centralization of office did take place, and the emphasis on wide public, largely amateur, participation in public office continued to apply pretty well to the city-states, ethne¯, and federal leagues that constituted the overwhelming majority of governments across the Greek world even in that later era. See also: Arts: History; Rhetoric; Sophists; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Orators and Speechwriters; Slavery, Public; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Taxation; Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Assemblies; Athenian Constitution; Citizenship; Councils; Democracies; Monarchies; Plato, Political Theory of; Spartan Constitu­ tion; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Religion and Beliefs: Priests and Priestesses; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups FURTHER READING Adkins, A. W. H. 1960. Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Adkins, A. W. H. 1972. Moral Values and Political Behavior in Ancient Greece. New York: W. W. Norton. Cartledge, P. 1979. Sparta and Lakonia. London and New York: Routledge. Christ, M. 2006. The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press. Develin, R. 1989. Athenian Officials, 684–321 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fornara, C. W. 1971. The Athenian Board of Generals from 501 to 404. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner Verlag. Hansen, M. H. 1991. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology. Oxford: Blackwell. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology Jones, N. F. 1987. Public Organization in Ancient Greece: A Documentary Study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Meiggs, R. 1979. The Athenian Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, L. G. and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ober, J. 1996. The Athenian Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Samons, L. J. 2000. Empire of the Owl: Athenian Imperial Finance. Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag. Stockton, D. 1990. The Classical Athenian Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PUNISHMENT. See JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENT SIEGE TECHNOLOGY The ancient Greeks certainly had widespread experience of siege warfare; their most famous story, after all, was about their heroic ancestors’ siege of Troy. Yet, for much of their early history, sieges simply meant cutting off supplies and movement in and out of a walled enemy city, and then waiting out that enemy. Not really until the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE did the Greeks turn to active employment and development of technology to turn the tide of siege warfare. During the Bronze Age in Greece (c. 1700–1100 BCE), the major centers of Mycenaean culture and trade possessed limited walls, built to protect only the citadel, the fortress heart of the community, from assault or siege. During the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), though, fortification walls became more and more common as a form of protection for the entire urban center inhabited by a particular Greek population. The impetus for this development seems to have come from the experience of the Ionian Greeks, who lived in western Asia Minor, the borderlands between the Greek world and the powerful states to the east, especially the Kingdom of Lydia and the Persian Empire. These latter realms had inherited ­centuries-old methods of siege craft, going back at least to Assyrian times—­methods that made the Greek communities in Asia Minor feel quite vulnerable to conquest. Yet, as the Milesians and other Ionian Greeks discovered during the major Persian onslaughts of the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, stout fortification walls were not a foolproof defense against concerted attack, no matter how many sieges they had previously warded off. Still, for most Greek city-states, especially for those on the Greek mainland and the islands of the Aegean, fortification walls came to symbolize their autonomy and

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acquired a reputation for impenetrability by siege; the case of Athens, protected by its Long Walls during the war with Sparta in the fifth century BCE, best illustrates this notion. Indeed, the Peloponnesian War witnessed a remarkable explosion of wall construction among the Greek communities; more expensive stone replaced brick and rubble as the preferred building material for walls, designed in more regular courses with more watchtowers and more gates for the sallying forth of defenders against attackers. Complex fortification projects also frequently utilized the natural ruggedness of local terrain as an ally in defense against siege. Such investments in walls to deter and repel besieging enemies made sense because most Greek armies were not like those of the Persian Empire; they did not have the sheer numbers required to properly besiege a city. During the Peloponnesian War, however, the Greeks did develop technologies of siege craft to offset this point. Hence, Thucydides, the historian of that conflict, noted the widespread use of siege devices (me¯chanai or me¯chane¯mata), which included not only the battering ram (krios), movable siege tower (helepolis), and siege ramps but also incendiary projectiles and a sort of flamethrower; besieging forces protected by collective shielding (such as the so-called tortoise) worked to undermine enemy walls and even drill through them. Abundant manpower and technological sophistication came together to make the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) the heyday of siege craft among the Greeks. The most famous addition to the military arsenal was the missile-hurling device in its various forms. Whether it had any sort of precursor in the siege technologies of the Ancient Near East remains unclear, though some scholars have speculated that the Carthaginians, heirs to the Near Eastern heritage, may have possessed something that became a prototype for developments among the Greeks on the island of Sicily. In the year 399 BCE, Dionysius of Syracuse, leader of the Sicilian Greeks in their war against Carthaginian expansion, introduced the katapeltikon, or catapult (or perhaps we should say improved upon or rediscovered it, provided that there were Near Eastern or Carthaginian types) into siege warfare. The ancient accounts credit him with inviting expert military engineers and inventors from Greece, Italy, and even Carthaginian territory to work on the project; they were divided into competitive teams supervised by leading Syracusan citizens. These designers may have had the gastraphete¯s as their inspiration, since it probably already existed by this time. This was a “belly shooter” or stomach-braced crossbow capable of firing bolts or arrows. The archer armed the gastraphete¯s by pushing down on its forward stock, which forced back toward him a slider into which the projectile was inserted; this action also forced back the bowstring of the device, cocking it into firing position as a claw-shaped trigger grabbed hold of the string. The archer then lay down on the ground, braced the crossbow against his stomach, aimed at the target, and fired the missile by pulling the claw’s release bar.

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A Greek adaptation of the “belly shooter,” the oxybele¯s (sharp-thrower), sat on a stand and was armed with the help of a winch. The catapult of Dionysius improved on this design. Windlass and pulley systems were integrated into it to generate greater force and the base on which it sat could swivel for optimal targeting. Some scholars believe that the Syracusan catapults also employed torsion springs, made from twisted animal hair or sinew, to provide firing power, though others contend that this enhancement came from the skilled engineers recruited by Philip II of Macedon later in the fourth century. As at the siege of Perinthus in 341 BCE, the Macedonians certainly made effective use of a variety of torsion-driven catapults, capable of delivering much larger projectiles. By the mid-fourth century BCE, catapults had become quite commonplace in Greek siege craft; Philip’s heir, Alexander the Great, could call on experts in catapult technology all around the Greek world, from Magnesia in Asia Minor to Tarentum in southern Italy. Third-century inscriptions indicate that instruction in the use of siege machines had come to be included within the regular training regimen of ephebes, young male citizens eligible for military service. Greek communities of the Hellenistic Era thus came to place a premium on expert warriors with great technical skill (even if POWs from the enemy camp); this was, after all, the world that produced Demetrius of Macedon, known as Poliorcetes, “Besieger of Cities.” Literary and archaeological evidence reveal that different sorts of catapults coexisted in time, illustrating a wide range of variations, the result of modifications even on a local level. Technical writers, like Aeneas Tacticus (mid-fourth century BCE), Biton (c. 200 BCE), and Athenaeus Mechanicus (second half of the first century BCE), provided assistance here, for instance, by inclusion of the relative mathematical measurements for catapult parts, calculated in relation to the diameter of the torsion springs. Furthermore, new developments continued apace, fueling, and fueled by, a kind of siege-technology arms race. Hence, Ctesibius of Alexandria, one of the great scientists commissioned by the Ptolemies, designed an air-driven catapult in which the springs drove pistons into cylinders, building up air pressure within them that, when released, forced the arms of the catapult crossbow into action. Hence, Dionysius of Alexandria, working for the Greek island-state of Rhodes, designed a repeater catapult, or polybolos, in which a rotating mechanism above the slider, operated by a chain-gear drive and windlass, dropped a new bolt into position to replace the bolt just fired. Other siege technologies of Late Classical and Hellenistic times included ­torsion-driven stone launchers (  petroboloi or lithoboloi), like those utilized by both sides in Alexander the Great’s siege of Tyre in 332 BCE, the cheiroballistra, a handheld mechanical sling-shot developed by Greek designers for the Roman

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military, and the sambyke¯, a mechanical lifting/ scaling device utilizing pulley systems and resembling the popular stringed musical instrument of the same name. Siege machines were perfected over time to hit targets several hundred yards away and to launch payloads weighing up to one hundred fifty pounds. Certainly, the ancient Greeks arrived at a point where good walls were not enough to protect a city under siege. In the late third century BCE, Philo of Byzantium, a technical writer like those mentioned above, in discussing the needs of “modern” siege technology, recommended that each district of a Greek city have one stone thrower and two smaller firing engines, and that skilled engineers and siege-weapon operators be regular personnel in any Greek military. He also advised those engaged in besieging a locale to specially target such operators and to offer substantial rewards for their deaths! See also: Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Engineering; Geometry; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy; Physics FURTHER READING Burford, A. 1972. Craftsmen in Greek and Roman Society. London: Thames & Hudson. Campbell, D. B. 2003. Greek and Roman Artillery, 399 BC–AD 363. Oxford: Osprey. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Blackwell. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphrey, J. W., J. P. Olsen, and A. N. Sherwood. 1998. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge. Marsden, E.  W. 1969. Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Developments. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marsden, E.  W. 1971. Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rihll, T. E. 2007. The Catapult: A History. Yardley, PA: Westholme. Whitehead, D. 1977. Aineias the Tactician: How to Survive under Siege. 2nd ed. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Winter, F. E. 1971. Greek Fortifications. Toronto: Toronto University Press.

SPARTAN CONSTITUTION Sparta provides a striking example of ancient Greek city-state development but also a very unique one; unlike any other polis, Sparta sought the total political and social subordination of the individual to the community and the total focus of all citizens on preparedness for warfare. The Spartans were very conservative people protected by very conservative government. Their traditions told them that their principal customs and style of

Politics and Warfare: Spartan Constitution

governance, that is, their constitution, or politeia, all came from a man named Lycurgus, who supposedly lived in the seventh century BCE. In fact, the Spartan way evolved over a long period of time, probably, as the poet Tyrtaeus records, in reaction to recurrent troubles between the Spartans and their chief victims, the Messenians. The Spartans sought to maintain domination over these (who perhaps outnumbered the Spartans seven to one) and other subject populations (who perhaps matched the number of Spartans) in the southern Peloponnese; to do so, they needed to produce the most ruthless and effective oppressors in all of Greece. Their agoˉge¯, a system of mass discipline and indoctrination (obsessively described by later generations of Greeks), provided the means to this. At the age of seven, Spartan boys and girls were removed from their homes and raised through the age of seventeen by the polis, that is, by paidiskoi (trainers of the children) under the supervision of officials known as paidonomoi (rule-givers to the children). Spartan education consisted of training in discipline, obedience, and physical fitness, as if the boys and girls were horses or dogs; they also learned how to conform to societal norms and how to live on very little. At the conclusion of this training, Spartan girls returned home to become wives and mothers, while Spartan boys became trainers themselves or eirenes (reservists) in the Spartan army; they engaged in the krypteia, a critical initiation ritual in which they roamed the countryside without equipment or food, moving only at night so as to remain unseen, foraging, raiding, and murdering Messenian slaves (helots). Those who failed the krypteia might be exiled from Sparta or executed by their fellows. Those Spartan males who passed the krypteia entered the class of he¯boˉntes, officially recognized citizens of the polis. They never returned home, though, because now they joined and lived with their fighting unit, the syssition, providing from their slave-worked, family estates the required monthly quota of produce for the unit’s maintenance (anyone who defaulted on his quota lost status becoming a hypomeion, an inferior citizen). One might refer to the he¯boˉntes already by the term homoioi, Equals, but that proud designation of full citizenship status really applied to the Spartan men age thirty and above because they could sit in the apella, the assembly of voters. The Spartan apella may have been the first such assembly to elect its own officials. It elected the gerousia, a council of elders consisting of twenty-eight men over the age of sixty; they served for life as the steering committee for the apella and as a court of law in criminal matters. The apella also elected the board of five ephors (ephoroi), the overseers of “order and discipline,” who served annual terms. They conducted the everyday administration for the city-state and the meetings of the apella, making proposals to it and to the gerousia (which they attended but did not preside over), tried civil cases, received ambassadors, and acted as Sparta’s diplomats. The ephors enjoyed

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wide latitude in their powers and even in the development of policy. More importantly, they had ultimate oversight of the agoˉge¯ and the Spartan army, determining the age groups to call up for service, and ultimate responsibility for holding down the helots, and thus possessed tremendous authority, even if limited by term and majority vote. In contrast, the apella could only accept or reject proposals from the ephors or the gerousia, the latter body holding the right to veto the voters’ decision. Spartan Equals thus did not propose legislation themselves, nor did they have the chance, or even the right, to debate the proposals handed down to them by their authority figures. The Spartans also retained an old tradition from the Greek past, that of kingship. In fact, Sparta had two kings from two separate, but related, family lines, the Eurypontids and the Agiads. Sparta’s kings commanded the army, served as high priests for the community, sat in judgement in cases of family law, and presided over meetings of the apella and the gerousia. They, along with the ephors, swore a monthly oath to follow the laws and preserve the privileges of Sparta’s citizens. But the ephors always accompanied and oversaw the kings while on campaign, limited royal power in other ways at home, and could, in fact, place the kings under arrest, bringing them for trial before the gerousia. Many Greeks admired the Spartan constitution for its supposed eunomia, its harmony of rules, which seemed to promote social cohesion and political stability, qualities often sorely lacking in other Greek city-states. The Spartan way kept the helots down and invaders out, as well as visitors or resident aliens, so as to prevent cultural contamination. Yet all was not rosy. It appears likely that certain families overtook their “equals” in the competition for seats on the gerousia and that the kings, who did not have to pass the agoˉge¯, exercised their patronage to manipulate elements of the system. The known trials of “bad” kings and their subordinates reveal the viciousness and the bitter rivalries under the surface of Sparta’s supposedly harmonious elite. Thanks to their survivalist doctrine, Spartans were in a permanent state of war. They stifled any individual desires or creativity (especially, it seems, after the Persian Wars) and virtually eliminated what other Greeks (and moderns) would call family relations (which eventually contributed to a dramatic decline in birth rates among the Spartans); they became entirely dependent on their subject populations to carry on any necessary trade and to produce necessities of life, such as tools, clothes, food, and even weapons (without which Spartans could not be Spartans). Abroad, their kings often engaged in flagrant profiteering; their ephors lacked tactfulness; their commanders treated other peoples with excessive roughness. This

Politics and Warfare: Tyrannies

is to say nothing of the suppression of freedoms at home, in a society where even travel required official permission. See also: Arts: Poetry; Lyric; Economics and Work: Slavery, Public; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Aristotle, Political Theory of; Assemblies; Citizenship; Councils; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Leagues/Alliances; Monarchies; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Plato, Political Theory of; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Science and Technology: Education FURTHER READING Adkins, A. W. H. 1972. Moral Values and Political Behavior in Ancient Greece. New York: W. W. Norton. Cartledge, P. 1979. Sparta and Lakonia. London and New York: Routledge. Cartledge, P. 2003. The Spartans. New York: Random House/Vintage Press. Forrest, W. G. 1968. A History of Sparta: 950–192 BC. New York: W. W. Norton. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge.

TYRANNIES In a number of Greek city-states, competition for power and status within the aristocracy, as well as more personal feuds, and sometimes the interference of outside forces, led to political instability. Violent political upheavals resulted, in which particular aristocratic leaders, or wealthy citizens excluded from power by the aristocrats, established themselves as dictators over their polis. The Greeks had a name for such men, which they seem to have borrowed from cultures further east: tyrannoi, that is, tyrants. Some tyrants arose as leaders of independence movements in their communities. For example, in the city-state of Sicyon, Orthagoras and his family (c. 670– c. 550 BCE), especially his grandson Cleisthenes, reasserted the local monarchy (basileia), which had fallen generations earlier to foreign invaders; the Orthagorids secured the independence of Sicyon through successful military adventures abroad and political restructuring at home, until the Spartans ended their power and absorbed Sicyon (under aristocratic leadership) into the Peloponnesian League. Some tyrants arose as puppets of outside powers. This was especially true among the Greek communities absorbed by the Persian Empire in the sixth century

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BCE, like Miletus in western Turkey, ruled successively by the tyrants Histiaeus and his nephew Aristagoras. The Persian kings were fond of appointing such aristocrats as liaisons between the locals and themselves, with the expectation that they follow royal orders and look out for royal interests. (The Macedonian kings would employ a similar strategy in the third century BCE in their efforts to dominate Greek politics). A number of tyrants came to power allegedly as champions of change. One example was Cypselus, member of the Bacchiad ruling family of Corinth. Like Theagenes, tyrant of Megara (c. 640 BCE), he played on the heated tensions between the lower classes of the community and the aristocrats, using the military might of the former to dispense with the latter, his own relatives, killing or exiling rivals among them on the grounds that they had been “oppressive” toward the people; he confiscated the properties of his enemies and seized sole power. His Cypselid dynasty (c. 655–c. 518 BCE) reinforced that power by establishing military and political alliances across a wide array of powerful city-states and by raising considerable funding through trading ventures (especially in pottery and bronzeware) across the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean; the Cypselids even had a sort of canal dug across the Isthmus of Corinth, a not inconsiderable feat of engineering and a great boon to shipping. The wealth of the Corinthian aristocracy increased, and Corinthian craftsmen, to whom the Cypselids showed unusual respect, profited financially and in terms of reputation. The great Theban poet Pindar praised the justice and order of Corinth under the tyrants, who accomplished a lot for their city-state, making it a cultural and economic center for all of Greece. Another case of such tyrants “of the people,” and the best known to us, was that of the Pisistratids. Pisistratus of Athens served as commander of his city’s forces in its war against nearby Megara in the sixth century BCE. Although victorious, Athens was rife with aristocratic factionalism and socioeconomic unrest; the regionalism of Attica encouraged rival concentrations of aristocratic power, and several prominent Athenians, including Pisistratus, seized upon these conditions to promote themselves. The citizenry split into hostile camps, one of which was led by Pisistratus. His followers were evidently poor, landless farmers, disgruntled outsiders (probably nouveau riche citizens), and social outcasts, as well as new arrivals to the city. They attempted to seize control of Athens by force around 561 BCE, but resistance from the other factions together stopped them and forced Pisistratus (and probably many of his supporters) into exile. Many Greek tyrants seem to have had a flair for building up foreign aid, and Pisistratus was certainly no exception; he garnered assistance and money from as far away as Macedon, Thessaly, and Naxos, and closer to home from Euboea, Thebes, and Argos. As a consequence, he launched an attack against his Athenian enemies near Marathon, the so-called Battle of Athena Pallenis, in 546 BCE. His victory allowed him to disarm his fellow citizens, confiscate land and hostages

Politics and Warfare: Tyrannies

from his rivals, and pay off his supporters; he also formally allied with foreign states (including Sparta), especially other tyrants (like Lygdamis of Naxos and Polycrates of Samos), and even won over cooperative Athenian aristocrats (including the Cimonids and even the Alcmaeonids). Pisistratus made sure that members of his family or he himself were always present when decisions of Athens’ “democratic” government were to be made. He enhanced the justice system by establishing circuit-courts, raised new taxes on agricultural productivity, and exploited the city’s gold, iron, copper, and silver resources to generate even more revenue. Pisistratus used these funds to advance cheap loans to the poor, encourage more family farms, build up the agora, and galvanize the populace through a new Temple to Athena on the Acropolis, as well as bigger, city-wide festivals in honor of Apollo, Dionysus, and especially Athena. Athens began to mint its earliest coinage, and tradition says that Pisistratus ordered the collection and first-ever editing of the famous poems of Homer. When he died in 527 BCE, his sons Hippias and Hipparchus succeeded him and attempted to continue his efforts and his style of governance. When Hipparchus was murdered in 514, however, Hippias became fiercely offensive toward many of his countrymen. He flagrantly ignored the laws, even forcing prominent aristocrats into exile. Such exiles fled to Sparta for assistance, and in 510 BCE, the Spartan army, under its power-hungry king Cleomenes I, entered Athens, compelling Hippias to abdicate and flee the country; he ended up in Persia and later guided the forces of Darius in their attack against Marathon. The Spartans already touted themselves as “enemies of tyrants,” and this intervention seemed to live up to that propaganda. Tyranny as a form of government afterward fell out of favor among most Greek communities, except on the island of Sicily and in some southern Italian city-states, where it continued into the third century BCE. In that region, wars of expansion and defense between the Carthaginians and the Greeks, between the Greeks and native peoples, and among the Greeks themselves, provided the opportunity for ambitious Greek generals to seize dictatorial powers. The brothers Cleander and Hippocrates did so at Gela, for instance, as did the brothers Gelo and Hiero at Gela and Syracuse, and later the father and son, Dionysius I and Dionysius II at Syracuse. Such tyrants built their power upon exploitation of class tensions and establishment of foreign alliances (in imitation of Pisistratus and Cypselus), on expansionism and military victories (in imitation of Polycrates), and on transplantation of whole populations (their own invention). Gelo’s victory over the Carthaginians (480 BCE), Hiero’s victory over them and their Etruscan allies (474 BCE), and Dionysius I’s efforts to oust the Carthaginians from Sicily altogether (390s BCE) contributed to their prestige and added “defense of Greek culture” to the list of justifications Greek tyrants could claim for their power. Dionysius I, in fact, stretched his power across into Italy and up the Adriatic coast; the Spartans

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eagerly received his aid against the Athenians, most ironic considering their professed distaste for tyrants. Typically, tyrannies lasted only two or three generations, even though in some places multiple tyrannies under separate dynasties occurred. In the long view, tyrannies represented phases of crisis in the political, economic, and military development of a polis, moments in which society needed radical shaking up in order to weaken the aristocratic hold on power, or to increase social mobility, or to defend against foreign threats, or ultimately to preserve the polis from all-out civil war or foreign domination. Indeed, despite the pejorative connotation attached to the word “tyrant” by their elite rivals, by ancient Greek historians, and by particular powerful interests (like the “anti-tyrant” Achaean League of the third century BCE), most tyrannies did more good for their communities than harm: citizens’ wealth and patriotism came to count more than birthright, and tyrants tended to bring about more peace and unity within their communities than had previously existed; connections to other Greek communities gained strength; and the urban landscape as well as the artistic sophistication of a polis was developed and promoted (as the magnificent architecture of Syracuse attests). Authors hostile to tyranny wrote the history of the phenomenon, slanted by obvious, moralistic biases, and making reconstruction of the actual history of tyranny challenging; they could not, however, completely deny the accomplishments of Greece’s more famous tyrants. See also: Arts: Poetry, Lyric; Family and Gender: Clans/Gene¯; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Athenian Constitution; Carthage, Wars with; City-States; Civil War; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Leagues/Alliances; Monarchies FURTHER READING Andrewes, A. 1963. The Greek Tyrants. New York: Harper & Row. Caven, B. 1990. Dionysius I: War-Lord of Sicily. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cerchiai, L, L. Jannelli, and F. Longo. 2002. The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. New York: Arno Press. Donlan, W. 1980. The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece. Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press. Hall, J. M. 2007. A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Lewis, S. 2009. Greek Tyranny. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tritle, L. A., ed. 1997. The Greek World in the Fourth Century. London and New York: Routledge.

Politics and Warfare: Warfare, Attitudes Toward

WARFARE, ATTITUDES TOWARD The ancient Greeks held very highly the value of competition and contest; hence, moderns refer to them as an agonistic society, one which focused a great deal on the agoˉn, the struggle for victory. It should not be surprising, then, that Greek attitudes toward warfare were generally quite favorable. What might be surprising is how critical and honest about warfare the ancient Greeks also were. The ideals of the earliest recorded eras of Greek history were the militaristic values of an aristocracy of males who lived and achieved status by fighting, ideals like courage on the battlefield, magnificence in self-display, competitiveness among one another, magnanimity to the defeated, and so on. In those times, warriors from the elite families defended their people and their territory, and took great pride in doing so. With the advent of hoplite warfare in the seventh century BCE, a larger segment of each population, those males who could afford the weaponry and training of the heavily armored infantryman, began to appropriate and embrace the aristocratic warrior ideology. Citizen soldiers felt the need of this to sustain them in their life-and-death efforts to defend and expand their city-states against the threats, real or perceived, posed by rival citizen armies. The various Greek societies pressured citizen soldiers to prove their andreia and their arete¯, their manly bravery and their excellence. Warfare was, thus, a matter of masculinity, too. In Hellenistic times, warfare remained a largely local affair, but such could now fuel bigger conflicts. The Greek kingdoms of the era, often entirely militaristic in their structure and organization, continued the traditions of warfare of their city-state forebears, except that monarchs hired Greek and Macedonian mercenaries instead of relying on citizen soldiers. Otherwise, expectations had not changed much; ten out of the fourteen Seleucid kings died in battle themselves, for instance. Large-scale taxation allowed unprecedented scale of forces and hyper-imperialism, derived ultimately from the Macedonian tradition of aristocratic warrior chiefs, fueled frequent conflicts across vast stretches of territory, unlike anything the citystates had ever seen. Such ideals of militarism and the sense of fierce patriotism were promoted in a very public fashion in ancient Greek communities and kingdoms, and especially in those that had been successful in warfare. Call-ups for citizen soldiers at Athens were posted on the statues of tribal heroes in the agora, a very public place with obvious connotations of a desire for the rise of new heroes in combat. As remembered by the seventh-century BCE poet Tyrtaeus, the Spartans treated all those fellow-citizens who had gained “fame with the spear,” that is, who had served bravely and victoriously in battle, with greater respect and deference than any other men (despite the fact that at Sparta all male citizens were supposedly

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equals). The ephebes at Athens, young men in military training, engaged in competitive boat races to reach the nearby island of Salamis, part of an annual commemoration of Athenian naval successes in the Persian Wars. Spoils of war, especially panoplies stripped from the enemy dead, served as major decorations in community shrines and temples, to which Greeks promised a share of the war loot in thanksgiving for divine assistance in winning battles. The display of spoils reinforced group confidence and bolstered the reputations of commanding officers, who often received a large share of spoils for themselves. The return of the war dead, as when Alexander the Great personally conveyed the cremated remains of fallen Athenian warriors in a procession to their home after the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE), also made a strong impression on the living. Greek communities, like Thespiae and Thebes, had their own memorial cemeteries; Athens became particularly well-known for its version, the De¯mosion Se¯ma, where citizen soldiers received a hero’s burial, accompanied by funeral speeches, like the one Pericles famously pronounced over the first Athenian troopers who fell in the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE). Like Athens, many Greek communities held annual athletic contests in honor of the war dead, a tradition that went back at least to Homeric times. Battlefields themselves were obvious places to display communal attitudes toward warfare. The Spartans typically buried their war dead on the field of battle or nearby; the Athenians did so when they erected the great burial mound at Marathon in 490 BCE. At the point on the battlefield where one army had been turned by another, the latter erected trophies (tropaia) in honor of the divine force that had brought about this “happy” turn. Tropaia typically consisted of arms and armor collected from the fallen enemy, mounted on a pole or tree trunk; their erection was accompanied by special sacrifices (epinikia) to the gods. Trophies were considered inviolable; to touch them even for purposes of repair was a sacrilege. In the fourth century BCE and afterward, more permanent victory monuments in stone became common. Of course, warfare was not just praised for its heroic ideals but also prized for the practical advantages (  pleonexia) gained through it, which were considered just as fundamental in ancient Greek society as those ideals. For instance, the communities along the borders of Thessaly and Phocis engaged in repeated military rivalry openly over resources to be gained from the defeat of one another. The Athenian general Miltiades convinced his people that the loot they might gain from a naval assault on Paros was just as legitimate a motive to attack the island as were the Medizing (sympathizing with the Persian Empire) of the Parians and the personal insults they had made against him. Ancient Greek historians and other authors divided their history into periods according to wars. They certainly shared with philosophers the notion that human

Politics and Warfare: Warfare, Attitudes Toward

beings are naturally prone to warlike behavior and a desire for domination. The sixth century BCE cosmologist Heraclitus even called war the “father of all and king of all”; in other words, everything in the universe existed because of struggle and conflict. Numerous Greek authors, from poets to playwrights, spoke of the strong dominating the weak as a law of nature; indeed, they often defined freedom as only being possible for someone or some state that could fight in defense or conquest. The ancient Greeks did not utilize their patriotism or pride or greed to shy away from the brutalities of warfare. Many insisted upon such brutalities, as did the character Agamemnon in Homer’s Iliad, urging his brother Menelaus to be thoroughly destructive of and unforgiving toward all the Trojans because “they” had wronged him so deeply. Yet there were also those who issued warnings about warfare. Platonic tradition, as well as orators like Isocrates and Aeschines, spoke more of peace among the Greeks, and of turning their warlike tendencies against “barbarian” outsiders. The Athenian historian Xenophon, himself a military commander, recommended from experience to start wars only with great caution and to bring them to an end as soon as possible. His predecessor Thucydides famously characterized war as a harsh teacher, and his predecessor Herodotus described the terrible reversal in the normal order of things brought about by war, such as fathers having to bury their fallen sons. The fifth-century BCE playwrights, whether tragedians like Euripides (Trojan Women, Heracles) and Aeschylus (Agamemnon) or comedians like Aristophanes (  Peace, Lysistrata) openly criticized the physical and psychological damage done to persons, families, and entire communities through the horrors of war; even the great hero Heracles is not immune to its aftereffects, destructive of self and others, as Euripides portrays him. Hysterical blindness and mutism, post-­traumatic depression, insomnia, and breakdowns, survivor’s guilt, acts of unprovoked violence against civilians, combined lust for and disgust with war: the ancient Greek authors illustrated all these reactions to combat. On an only slightly lighter note, Hellenistic playwrights raked the character of the “bragging soldier” over the coals in their comedies, and through him, all the lies told about the glories of war. Of course, the Homeric poems, as well as realities in their own lifetimes, inspired all the Greek authors; already in the eighth century BCE, Homer had conveyed the brutal picture of wartime realities as well as the paradox that warriors might be glorious but war is not. From his point of view, and many later Greeks would have agreed, Ares, god of war, was the worst of the gods, bringer of suffering and cruelty, hated even by Zeus. Students of Greek history should recall that the vast majority of readers and listeners in the ancient Greek world, and many of the prominent writers, were veterans of war themselves, especially in Classical times (490–323 BCE), so authors

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were not really telling those readers and listeners anything they had not already experienced. Still, writers and actors and singers provided through their creations a unique opportunity to ponder and deconstruct the experiences of war together in a group setting. Ancient Greeks could not deny that even the gods had their wars. Xenophon recognized how energizing it was to pursue and attack one’s enemies, and Herodotus held it a point of pride that he had memorized the names of all the Spartans who had died in the Battle of Thermopylae. Resistance to Persian-style unity and Greek political fragmentation in city-states and kingdoms encouraged a seemingly perpetual attitude of competitiveness. Military metaphors permeated Greek language and art. Despite the many unheroic ambushes, intrigues, and massacres that took place across the history of Greek warfare, the image of battling heroic champions, like those who fought in the mid-sixth century BCE for Argos and Sparta over the plain of Thyrea, remained, symbolic of the enduring agonistic ideal in ancient Greek warfare. See also: Arts: History; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Sophists; Theater, Comedy; Theater; Tragedy; Family and Gender: Men; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Arms and Armor; Carthage, Wars with; Cavalry; Civil War; Hoplite Soldiers; Navies; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Phalanx; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Primary Documents: Euripides on Women’s Tragedy of Surviving War (415 BCE); Poetry—Greek Poets on War; Thucydides on the Corcyraean Revolution (427 BCE) FURTHER READING Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garlan, Y. 1976. War in the Ancient World: A Social History. New York: W. W. Norton. Garnsey, P. D. A., and C. R. Whittaker, eds. 1978. Imperialism in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meineck, P., and D. Konstan, eds. 2014. Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Rich, J. W., and G. Shipley, eds. 1993. War and Society in the Greek World. London and New York: Routledge. Tritle, L.  A. 2000. From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival. London and New York: Routledge. Van Wees, H. 2004. Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities. London: Bristol Classical Press.

RECREATION AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS

INTRODUCTION The ancient Greeks certainly believed in enjoying life, something for which they often faced criticism from other ancient cultures, like the Jews and Romans. Communities in the ancient Greek world offered a wide array of activities for recreation. One would have found private and public venues for physical fitness, athletic training and competition, musical and theatrical performance, and horse racing. Most of these activities, engaged in by amateurs and professionals and viewed by scores of spectators, grew out of traditions of military preparedness and pious display toward the gods and only over time acquired the character of relaxing, fun entertainments, while never truly losing their original purposes. Some, like the Panhellenic contests, took on huge proportions, providing a vital break from the routine cares of life for tens of thousands of Greeks from all across their world. Ancient Greeks also enjoyed more small-scale forms of relaxation, like watching street entertainers, more private forms, like drinking in after-dinner parties among friends and associates, and more intimate forms, like frequenting courtesans and prostitutes, against which there were far fewer taboos than in later periods of European history. Everyone enjoyed the great public recreational events in common, as if they were all on the same social level, but that did not mean that the Greeks regarded everyone in general as on the same social level. They had strong notions about the propriety of social stratification, in most communities between aristocrats and commoners, in all communities between citizens and slaves. Yet, at the same time, ancient Greeks developed institutions whereby the success of the better-off was translated into benefits for the community as a whole, thereby maintaining, as did the great religious festivals, a sense of communal solidarity.

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ATHLETICS The Greek tradition of exercise, training, and competition in athletic events originated among the aristocrats of their communities. They and their ancestors had served as the original defenders of those communities, before citizen armies were developed in the eighth century BCE and afterward to replace or, at least, supplement the aristocratic forces. As practice for actual combat, Greek aristocrats engaged in athletic contests with one another, often mimicking the sorts of skills and movements required in battle; one can see athletic events, then, as a form of war games. The Greek elite also challenged each other to trials by combat to prove innocence or guilt in cases of justice, or even to demonstrate honor or cause shame among their peers; these actions, too, they translated into athletic competition. Finally, they celebrated their deceased comrades with contests of physical skill, which evolved into athletic funeral games. Many such aristocratic physical contests came to be incorporated into the community religious festivals of the Greek city-states as rituals of combat in honor of the gods; they came to include non-aristocrats as well, as hoplites drawn from the “commoners” became a more prominent feature of each city-state’s military establishment and regarded themselves as worthy of participation in such contests. Our term for these ritual contests, athletics, comes from the Greek word for prize (to athlon), since every athlete was regarded as a “prize seeker” and every winner (nike¯te¯s) of these games earned some sort of award, a mark of distinction to prove his value in the eyes of the community. Note well that there was no such thing in Greek athletics as second place. Even in the days when only aristocrats engaged in athletics, the Greeks had developed a belief that the gods enjoyed watching the physical striving of human beings; this continued and received further refinement in later centuries. Some Greeks, like the poet Pindar quite famously, even asserted that victory in sports was the closest thing to divine immortality, the culmination of the greatest energy, strength, and sheer force of human will. Very wealthy citizens funded athletic events for the viewing of their male comrades. Rarely were female citizens permitted to view athletes competing, principally because the latter were almost always men who stripped nude to do so. The tradition of nude athletes permeated Greek society, apparently beginning sometime after the writings of the poet Homer, who describes the Greek heroes wearing at least minimal clothing in their competitions. Although most Greek communities considered it taboo for women to see men nude, aside from the privacy of the marriage bed, still, sources do reveal that some women could view athletic contests, at least unmarried women. According to Pindar, for example, successful athletes, like Telesicrates of Cyrene, sparked the romantic and marital desires of such young female spectators at Athens.

Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics

As for women as athletes, ancient sources, from Homer to Xenophon, provide evidence of unmarried Greek girls engaging in athletics, especially running, wrestling, and swimming, and Plato supported female athleticism equal to male in his design for a perfect society. His thoughts were in line with the unique traditions of Sparta, the only Greek society known in which young women engaged in athletic contests. The Spartans had a different set of expectations for their women, though, when compared to other Greek communities; Spartan girls were encouraged, indeed expected, to exercise and grow strong so as to produce stronger, fitter Spartan children. In most parts of the Greek world, however, athletics, especially as public sport and contest, remained the special privilege of male citizens. Although many informal athletic contests took place across the Greek world, community leaders in many poleis organized formal games and instituted athletics as part of the upbringing of every young male citizen (by which they meant men between the ages of eighteen and thirty) through the establishment of public exercise grounds (gymnasia). One could receive intensive training there from experts who could produce fantastic results, such as Arrachion of Philagia, who (almost) resisted strangulation by his opponent during his last time competing, or Milon of Croton, who could reportedly break a rope tied round his head simply by bulging out the veins on his temples. As these stories illustrate, athletics was fiercely competitive and individualized. The Greeks did not practice team sports as part of their typical athletic regimen (boxing, wres- Bronze figurine of a Spartan girl running, sixth tling, running, jumping, riding, century BCE. Like boys in Sparta, girls also underwent an intensive physical training program, throwing) because their con- which included running, wrestling, and throwing tests were intended to prove the discus and javelin. This image may have adorned the skill, strength, and worth of the girl’s home or been offered by her or her parents men on their own, without any to one of the Spartan goddesses, likely Artemis, in thanks for a successful racing contest. (National assistance. This tradition, again Archaeological Museum, Athens/CM Dixon/Print inherited from the aristocrats of Collector/Getty Images)

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earlier times, held firm even in later generations when the ethic of cooperation and camaraderie had become so strong in the communities of Greek fellow soldiers. Athletics, in a sense, always remained a special, sacred place where the individual could shine separate from his position in the rank and file of the army or the ­citizenry—hence the enduring popularity of Pindar’s odes to athletic victors, glorifying them, at least momentarily, above and among all others. By the fourth century BCE, winners in athletic contests often received awards equivalent to perhaps three times their annual income. One could no longer consider such athletes as “amateurs” from one’s community or from neighboring communities, but, then again, that term never really did describe the athletes of the Greek world, who, as “prize seekers” after all, had always received something for their victories. Still, the prizes had increased by Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE) to the point where athletes could become true professionals, traveling far and wide to earn a living through their prowess. Moreover, aristocratic and wealthy competitors continued to predominate on the schedules of athletic events, even in the toughest and most dangerous sports, right through Roman times, and many of them had always treated athletics as a sort of profession. Greek athletics and sporting competition spread across the Mediterranean world, especially the eastern half of that world, under the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperors would have been aware of close to three hundred such contests, many of which had their origins as far back as the sixth century BCE. To focus our attention solely on the Olympics, or on the few other Panhellenic games, then, would be to lose sight of the big picture: just about everywhere that Greeks lived, they engaged in physical training and competition to prove their manliness and their kinship with the heroes of old, and to establish a sort of hierarchy of “Greekness,” with the athletic victor as the supreme Greek. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Family and Gender: Men; Women; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Citizenship; City-States; Democracies; Hoplite Soldiers; Spartan Constitution; Recreation and Social Customs: Boxing; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Racing; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Wrestling; Primary Documents: Pindar Celebrates a Wrestling Champion (c. 463 BCE) FURTHER READING Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, R. A. 1972. Sport in Greece and Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kyle, D. 2007. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Miller, S. G. 1991. Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Recreation and Social Customs: Boxing Miller, S. G. 2004. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Newby, Z. 2005. Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Poliakoff, M. 1987. Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition, Violence, and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Tzachou-Alexandri, O., ed. 1989. Mind and Body: Athletic Contests in Ancient Greece. Athens: National Hellenic Committee.

BOXING Boxing (known as pyx or pygmachia in their language) was perhaps as old a sport among the ancient Greeks as wrestling—perhaps even older, as we see images of boxers as far back as the fourteenth century BCE in the famous Minoan frescoes unearthed by archaeologists. Like wrestling, boxing in the world of the ancient Greeks figured prominently in traditional games to commemorate the dead as well as in the Panhellenic festivals celebrated in honor of the gods. The poet Homer, in his Iliad, has wise old Nestor recount the tale of his boxing victory many years before during funeral games for the king of the Epeians. At the moment of the telling, Achilles was about to offer prizes in the funeral games for his bosom friend Patroclus. Boxing matches took place in the afternoon sessions of the “international” Panhellenic contests, the Nemean, Isthmian, Pythian, and Olympic Games. They were divided into boys’ matches and men’s matches. The famous poet Pindar of Thebes, who made his living commemorating the winners at these games through victory songs (epinician odes), praised, for example, a boy from the Greek colony of Locri in southern Italy who won the boys’ boxing match at Olympia in 476 BCE; his name was Hagesidamus, and Pindar assures us that his success was achieved through hard effort. Perhaps the most celebrated ancient Greek boxer was Diagoras of the Eratidae clan, one of the elite gene¯ on the island of Rhodes. In the early fifth century BCE, he won in the men’s boxing matches at each of the Panhellenic “crown” festivals (multiple times at Nemea, four times at Isthmia), as well as at many other contests (on Rhodes, at Thebes, Athens, and Megara, to name only a few); his victory in 464 BCE at the Olympic Games was the occasion for a cumulative sort of commemorative ode commissioned from Pindar. Ancient Greek boxers, like Hagesidamus and Diagoras, unlike their modern counterparts, would not have utilized boxing gloves, but rather would have wound straps of leather around their knuckles, palms, wrists, and lower arms to provide protection during the contest. Such protection benefited primarily the attacker, not his opponent, as the straps certainly did not make things easier on the latter.

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The animal hide used was usually toughened up to increase the shock power of the fists. Additionally, the boxer might have the straps wrapped many times around his fists, turning them essentially into hard leather mallets with which to beat his adversary. Boxers even embedded metal nails among the straps or attached metal clips or plates to them, making their destructive potential that much greater. Once “armed,” Greek boxers began the contest by taking an initial stance intended to deny one another the chance of hitting the head or neck first thing; each lifted his fists up and outward toward his opponent while also pulling his own head away from his opponent’s reach. As their fists started flying, the boxers moved in closer, aiming Fresco of boys boxing, Thera, c. 1500 BCE. This blows at the chest sometimes, fresco decorated a wall in one of the Minoan houses but mainly at the face, striving to discovered on the island of Thera, now called strike especially the opponent’s Santorini, and reveals that even that far back in the history of the Aegean region people engaged jaw, cheeks, and temples. Not in boxing as a form of athletic competition and surprisingly, then, boxers trained entertainment. (UIG via Getty Images) a great deal in the practice of various techniques in swift maneuvering and blocking to avoid and deflect such blows. Just as in wrestling, boxing matches were monitored by judges who kept themselves dangerously close to the action; they had the task of identifying and laying sanctions against impermissible moves. They also had the responsibility to ensure that neither boxer caused the death of the other. Such monitoring was especially necessary considering that there were no divisions in Greek boxing according to the contestants’ weight and there were no weight limits either; a larger, heavier man and a smaller, slighter man might very well be matched against each other with no other compensation for the obvious advantages of the former than the

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observations and rulings of the judge. Indeed, Greek spectators often expected a mismatched contest and so these were apparently quite common. Since a Greek boxing match generally did not have rounds or rest periods or even time limits, contestants had to develop long-term endurance. Indeed, they sought to last longer in the match while attempting to wear out their antagonist so that he would be the first to raise his arm in a gesture of capitulation. If neither contestant did so, then the match continued until one or the other boxer was literally knocked out. Some of the elements of boxing became part of the mixed martial art known among the ancient Greeks as pankration. Something akin to modern kickboxing, but perhaps even more violent, pankration did not allow the use of straps or any of the related protective paraphernalia by the contestants. Furthermore, each fighter was only permitted to bend his fingers during the attack; clenched fists could not be employed in delivering a blow against one’s opponent. This made the fingers much more vulnerable to breaking and the wrists to spraining in a pankration match when compared to a boxing match. Even more than boxing, then, the pankration required what Pindar called “stout-hearted prowess.” Certainly, the ancient Greeks regarded boxing as a noble sport, worthy even of heroes. After all, the legendary Odysseus had not refused an impromptu boxing match against Arnaeus, a fellow “vagrant,” right in front of Penelope’s suitors; after deflecting a blow to his shoulder, Odysseus landed one of his own squarely under his opponent’s ear, smashing Arnaeus’ bones and forcing a flow of blood from his mouth, dropping him to the dusty floor in excruciating pain. The vivid legend did not stray far from the facts of historical ancient Greek boxing. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Wrestling FURTHER READING Crowther, N. 2007. Sport in Ancient Times. Westport, CT: Praeger. Decker, W. 1992. Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt. Translated by A. Guttman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Finley, M., and H. Pleket. 1976. The Olympic Games: The First Thousand Years. London: Dover. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kyle, D. 1987. Athletics in Ancient Athens. Leiden: Brill. Lee, H. 2001. The Program and Schedule of the Ancient Olympic Games. Hildesheim: Weidmann.

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The World of Ancient Greece Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg, eds. 1993. Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, S. 2004. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Morgan, C. 1990. Athletes and Oracles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olivová, V. 1984. Sports and Games in the Ancient World. London: Orbis. Poliakoff, M. 1987. Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition, Violence, and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Scanlon, T. F. 1984. Greek and Roman Athletics: A Bibliography. Chicago: Ares Publishers. Sinn, U. 2000. Olympia: Cult, Sport, and Ancient Festivals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sweet, W. E. 1987. Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CITY DIONYSIA The annual City Dionysia, or “Great” festival in honor of the god Dionysus at Athens, served as one of the most anticipated holiday events in the ancient Greek world. People from all over the Greek territories attended, if they had any excuse for being in Athens at that time of year (the second half of March). The festival had something for everyone: drama and comedy, music and ritual, solemn processions and raucous merriment. In the countryside of Attica, the Athenians celebrated many separate festivals dedicated to Dionysus, but they began to hold a more elaborate one inside the city limits at least by the second half of the sixth century BCE. The Athenians claimed that they had created this urban celebration of what was essentially a fertility god from the countryside after the residents of Eleutherae offered their town to be absorbed into Athenian territory; Eleutherae stood on the northwestern border of Attica and had broken away from the koinon, or confederacy, of Boeotian states as a form of political protest. The people of Eleutherae then made a religious procession to honor their transfer of allegiance to Athens, marching with the statue of Dionysus, apparently their most important deity, as a gift to their new Athenian comrades. According to tradition, the Athenians somehow angered the god, and he punished their men with some sort of genital disease, but they repented and engaged in holy procession, carrying phalluses to display both the region of their affliction and the power of the god over them. The disease passed, and the Dionysiac procession into the city became a fixed annual event. During the recurring spring festival, then, spectators witnessed a statue of Dionysus taken from his temple, located on the southern slope of the Acropolis (and known as that of Dionysus Eleutheros, “Liberator,” in both the sense of the people of Eleutherae freed from Boeotia and the Athenian men freed from their illness), and carried to a shrine near the grove of Academus (where the philosopher Plato

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eventually set up his school) on the road to Eleutherae. Then, on the eve of the festival itself, a torchlight procession brought the statue back to Athens, restoring it to its temple, where “Dionysus” could not only partake in the sacrifices and feasting to follow, but also join his people in the revels of song and theater. The elements of this procession apparently mimicked those of the rural celebrations in honor of Dionysus; the playwright Aristophanes in his Acharnians provides some details of the latter: everyone watching and involved in the procession was to stay silent, while the kanephoroi (young female basket carriers from prominent families) marched out in front (carrying sacred items and especially produce in their baskets), and young men (likely Athenian military trainees, ephe¯boi) carried the phalluses, holding them straight up in a totemic ritual of fertility and virility. Those celebrants behind would sing hymns to the god. In the fifth century BCE, when Athens dominated much of the Aegean region militarily, representatives from its allies also carried ceremonial phalluses and delivered their contributions to the common war fund during the procession to the temenos, or sacred precinct, of Dionysus. In other words, Athenians were not just inspired by the sight of their own youths parading in honor of the god, but were also bolstered in their pride at the sight of their military allies devoting themselves to the Athenian cause. Besides the procession, dithyramb performances were also a main feature of the City Dionysia on its first day. The dithyramb was an enthusiastic song of celebration in honor of the god, performed, along with appropriately choreographed dance moves, by a chorus of amateurs. Each of Athens’ ten tribes (divisions into which the citizenry were organized for political and military purposes) contributed their own separate choruses of fifty men and fifty boys, respectively, to participate; that is, five hundred men and five hundred boys from across the Athenian citizenry would have to perform for the crowds in the temenos of Dionysus. Scholars estimate that to produce these performing groups could cost as much as 5,000 drachmas each (a drachma being approximately one day’s wages for the average laborer). Each chorus, therefore, needed its own producer, or chore¯gos, who was chosen from a list of the wealthiest citizens in each tribe by a special board of tribal representatives; such wealthy citizens were expected by the community to “donate” their resources for such purposes (in this case, what was known as the chore¯gia). Each chore¯gos selected the members of the chorus, the player of the aulos (a sort of clarinet) who would accompany the chorus, and possibly the poet who would train the chorus and whose dithyramb the chorus would sing (though the poet might be assigned to the chore¯gos by the eponymous archon, the official who supervised the entire festival). Only the chorus itself received funding from the chore¯gos, the rest of the personnel involved receiving their funds from the Athenian treasury. Since all the choruses had to perform on the same day, each

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dithyramb had to be relatively short; very little is known today about the thousands of songs from generations of the City Dionysia. The first day of the City Dionysia then saw a sacrifice of bulls (over two hundred of them in 333 BCE, for instance) to Dionysus in his temenos and likely a banquet on the meat. The ephe¯boi and kanephoroi likely played an important role in this part of the festival as well. At the end, aulos players and torchbearers conducted the koˉmos, the time of wild revelry, which none of our sources describes in any exact detail. Over the next three days of the City Dionysia, Athenian audiences were treated to some of the greatest dramas and funniest comedies ever written; these became the heart and soul of the festival as a form of recreation. In July of the previous year, not long after assuming office, the eponymous archon had already selected the chore¯goi who would produce the plays (that is, fund the training of a chorus and production of its sets, costumes, and props) and, by the fall of that year, the playwrights and others who would have permission to stage their creations in the following spring. Three playwrights would be chosen, each to present three tragic dramas and a satyr play (a parody of myths acted out by men costumed as satyrs, the legendary companions of Dionysus); the archon also selected five playwrights who specialized in comedy each to present one of their works. Each tragedian would have to stage his material in a single day, as Aeschylus did with his Oresteia trilogy in 459 BCE (for which he won first prize, by the way), typically in the first half of the day, with the later part of the day reserved for the performance of a comedy (though some scholars suggest that all the comedies were performed on the first day of the theatrical events). To envision the atmosphere during the theatrical portion of the City Dionysia stirs the imagination. The plays took place on the sacred ground of Dionysus, eventually in a full-blown Theater of Dionysus. All the playwrights, actors, and chorus members were men. The audience would have been mainly male (including lots of boys and adolescents), who ate sweet snacks and drank wine throughout the program, especially upon the entrance and the exit of the chorus (each particular drama or comedy had its own troupe of singer-dancers who participated in the action). Certainly, this gave the theater events the feel of a stereotypical “guys’ holiday,” in which even resident aliens and foreign visitors were welcome to participate. Over time, the eponymous archons made additions and modifications to the program of entertainments. In the middle of the fifth century BCE, for instance, they added a feature derived from the stage plays, a contest among individual tragic actors. By the later fourth century BCE, contenders for the resulting acting prize had to perform in one play from each of the tragedians in the program. In the early fourth century BCE, the tragic playwrights in the festival no longer had to stage

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three plays each, but only two. Furthermore, the program now included an extra tragedy that had to come from the “classic” repertoire of the fifth century BCE, while dropping two of the satyr plays; instead, a satyr play was staged at the beginning of the theatrical performances, followed by the “old” tragedy. About half a century later, a similar “classic” comedy was added as an extra feature as well. Performances of the dithyramb, as well as the stage plays, were very competitive; a board of ten judges (one selected by lot from each tribe), who sat next to the priest of Dionysus at the very front of the spectators, would determine the poets, playwrights, choruses, and actors who merited a prize at the end of the program; actually, the best out of a random five judicial ballots in each category would win. Prizes in the early days seem to have included sacrificial animals (bulls and goats) and jars of wine, but in later times, awards of money were the norm according to one’s ranking in the contest. The most successful individuals also received crowns (that is, wreaths) of ivy as symbolic victory “trophies,” while the chore¯gos of the top chorus in the dithyramb contest received a bronze tripod (to be shared with his entire tribe). Winners typically made sacrifices to Dionysus in thanksgiving and treated their comrades to a victory feast. The Athenian government kept records of those who won in all the contests of the festival, inscribed in marble (not annually but rather every few decades), and set up on the Acropolis for all to see; fragments of such inscriptions are extant. They reveal what the Athenians thought most important to remember about this form of public recreation/ritual: the name of the eponymous archon, the names of the tribes that won first place, respectively, in the men’s and the boys’ choruses, the names of the winning tragic and comic playwrights, the names of the winning plays and their lead actors, the names of the chore¯goi who won prizes for their choruses and for their tragic and comic plays, and the name of the best tragic actor in the acting contest. The records refer to the successful playwrights as didaskoloi, that is, teachers, instructors, masters in their field, certainly a reference not only to their training of actors and such, but also to their teaching of the audience through their stories. The City Dionysia ranks as one of the most important hybrids of religion and recreation in the ancient Greek world. Certainly for the citizenry of Athens it held a special significance, considering that most men in the community had participated at one time or another in the performances of the City Dionysia, and, if they had not, their male relatives likely had done so. In other words, this was a showcase for the men of the community, placing their resources and their talents at the disposal of and on display for their fellow citizens. They stood in awe of the god together, laughed together, cried together, and reveled together. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Housing and Community: Country Life; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and

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Foreigners; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Entertainers, Popular; Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Carpenter, T. H., and C. A. Faraone, eds. 1993. Masks of Dionysos. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Csapo, E., and W. J. Slater. 1995. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Kowalzig, B. 2007. Singing for the Gods: Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Otto, W. F. 1965. Dionysus: Myth and Cult. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pickard-Cambridge, A. 1988. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seaford, R. 2006. Dionysos. London and New York: Routledge. Sommerstein, A. 2002. Greek Drama and Dramatists. London and New York: Routledge. Wilson, P. 2000. The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winkler, J. J., and F. I. Zeitlin, eds. 1989. Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

CLASS STRUCTURE AND STATUS In the world of the ancient Greeks, criticisms of the rich by the poor, and of the elite by the nonelite, go back at least as far as the poet Hesiod in the eighth century BCE. His predecessor Homer, as well as the Linear B tablets from Mycenaean times (c. 1700–1100 BCE), reveals that a hierarchy of classes and statuses had always been part of Greek life during recorded history. Ancient sources might say very little in explaining particular socioeconomic levels, but they make no bones about the differences and conflicts among the Greeks of those levels. Athens provides our best evidence. One of the key indicators of class status in the Greek world, as in the modern world, was where one lived and especially in what sort of home one lived. In the Athenian democracy, for instance, where citizens prided themselves on equality, class status was nonetheless very obvious in terms of housing. Many Athenians lived in small homes crammed together along the narrow streets of the city center, and many lived in similar clusters of dwellings located in the villages or demes which constituted the Athenian countryside. High-class Athenians (who made up perhaps 3 percent of the total citizen population), however, owned mansions in

Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status

town much larger than the typical home and in the countryside they lived on vast estates, on average as large as sixty acres. The parallels between urban and rural dwelling patterns and the relatively close, back-and-forth everyday activities between those who lived in town and those who lived in the countryside might, at first, suggest an absence of status consciousness between the urban and rural worlds, but that would be an unrealistic conclusion. Urbanites might own some land in the countryside as a supplement to their small businesses in town, but they saw themselves as skilled craftsmen, not at all the same as the simple farmers and shepherds who lived out in the rural environment. True, there was a close interdependence between town and country in the ancient economy, but Greek authors, almost all of whom were born and raised in urban settings, reveal clearly the hostility of urbanites toward the vast majority of their fellow countrymen who lived as peasants, agroikoi, in the countryside. While the business practices of Greek merchants in the city centers and harbors frequently took advantage of or disturbed the more conservative lifestyles of such peasants, the latter, nevertheless, remained loyal and stubborn patriots and provided most of the soldiers for the hoplite armies of Classical times (490–323 BCE), and often endured long years of greater hardship than their urban fellows (as was the case of the Athenian peasants during the Peloponnesian War, for instance). Urban-rural antagonisms did not necessarily match the divide between rich and poor, either. In a place like Athens, many smug urbanites were simple laboring citizens, the¯tes, who worked as fullers, carpenters, smiths, shopkeepers, and so on. The peasants whom they looked down their noses at were often also classed as the¯tes according to the census records of the city-state, or as even higher-class freeholders, zeugitai, who certainly would not merit scorn on economic grounds. In other communities, such as Megara and Argos, “poorer” urbanites rose up in revolution against powerful landowners in the countryside and confiscated the latter’s wealth, only to make themselves the big landowners, thus often propelling their people into generations of back-and-forth “class” vengeance. Other key indicators of status, again similar to more modern times, were whether one took care of one’s own home and in what occupation one worked. In Athens, for example, most families did tend to the needs of their own houses and most worked their own small farms or shops, whereas the high class was defined by its leisure, not needing to work or tend house because they had the surplus wealth to employ the¯tes, as well as many slaves, to do so for them. The¯tes refused to be servants to anyone, though, so many more “menial” tasks, including such jobs as manager or foreman, were left to slaves and freedmen, thereby reducing the status of such occupations within Greek society.

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Perhaps most significantly, whereas most Greeks were expected to show frugality and caution in how they handled money, the upper classes believed in spending lots of money, whether on property, dowries, fancy clothes (which showed their folds, a proof that one could afford to store them in fancy chests!), foods, and wines, personal and family monuments, symposia, sports, and/or horses; they would also rarely be seen in public without escorts of other citizens and slaves in attendance on them. In other words, they subscribed to a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption and ostentatious display. If they managed to make good investments and accrue profits along the way, so much the better, but that was often not the case. Instead, evidence indicates that only about 5 percent of upper-class family fortunes in Athens actually lasted beyond two generations. Maintaining one’s status was, thus, a costly business. The upper class at Athens, as well as in other prosperous Greek city-states, faced a certain amount of challenge to their status, especially in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, from what we might call the nouveau riche, those who could be just as conspicuous and ostentatious but who did not possess the pedigree of the older families of the elite. The latter consisted of the aristocrats in the Greek communities, the original blue-blooded clans who provided the priests and priestesses, leading government officials and military commanders, and so on; they held to their own set of values and customs to distinguish themselves from the “commoners” in town, values that included a devotion to such things as athletics, warrior prowess, youthfulness, and even pederasty. The new rich rose up from the commoners, men like Cleon of Athens, son of a wealthy tanner; such men and their families achieved great success in business of various sorts and, as a result, made it onto the official list of liturgy men, those rich citizens whom the city-state would tap each year to fund big projects, like building warships or underwriting plays. Soon, even the new rich might have buildings named for them and monuments erected in their honor. The upper class had expanded, though not without prejudices remaining between the old and new moneyed families. In Athens, we know of two census classes (what we might refer to as “tax brackets”) that represented the expanded upper stratum of the community. One class was called the hippeis (horsemen), a term that Greeks often applied to members of the aristocracy but that in Athens came to be applied to the second richest class of citizens. The richest class was called the pentakosiomedimnoi (five-hundred bushel men), a term that clearly reflects how Greeks measured wealth ideally in terms of agricultural productivity, even when in actuality the wealth did not come from agriculture at all. The ancient Greeks may have shown antagonism within and among classes/statuses, but they, for the most part, did not oppose the existence of such distinctions on general principles because they regarded them as the creation of the gods and as

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a reflection of the natural order. Besides, even those who were not of high status compensated by holding their high-class leaders to higher-than-usual standards (as in the many trials of Athenian officials) or by focusing on the solidarity and group consciousness associated with being fellow citizens, who did not intermarry with “foreigners” and possessed freedom and rights denied to the latter as well as to slaves. Even in “democratic” Athens, only some one hundred grants of citizenship were ever made to non-Athenians, and then typically to foreigners of high status. Statuses dependent on the level of one’s citizenship (  politeia) held the most significant place in the hierarchies of ancient Greek society. Sparta provides the best example, with its division of citizens into full and equal (homoioi), “lesser” (hypomeiones, demoted for defaulting on civic obligations), “stepbrothers” (mothakes, very poor, or half-slave in ancestry), and “new citizens” (neodamodeis, partly enfranchised former slaves). If citizenship were not enough to give one a sense of superior status, one could always engage in actions, such as bravery on the battlefield, that would gain public recognition and, thereby, enhance one’s social position. Furthermore, despite widespread social prejudices against money-making and business, the Greeks were not egalitarians, nor did they believe in the righteousness of the simple poor. They believed in acquiring wealth in order to spend it in increasing the prestige of oneself and one’s family. There might have been little social mobility across classes, but it could happen (as in the atypical case in the fourth century BCE of an Athenian named Anthemion, who rose from the¯s to hippeus), and that seemed to be satisfactory enough. Indeed, by Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), especially on the Greek mainland, the poor were obviously getting poorer and the rich richer, yet only a few political radicals among the Greeks ever sought to change that phenomenon. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Economics and Work: Landownership; Social Revolution, Hellenistic Era; Housing and Community: Country Life; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Athenian Constitution; Citizenship; Civil War; Democracies; Spartan Constitution; Recreation and Social Customs: Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Primary Documents: Hesiod on the Values of Life (Eighth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Blok, J. H., and A. P. M. H. Lardinois, eds. 2006. Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches. Leiden: Brill. Figueira, T. J., ed. 2004. Spartan Society. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Finley, M. I. 1965. The World of Odysseus. New York: Viking Press. Finley, M. I. 1973. The Ancient Economy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Finley, M. I. 1981. Economy and Society in Ancient Greece. London: Chatto & Windus.

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The World of Ancient Greece Fuks, A. 1984. Social Conflict in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill. Garlan, Y. 1988. Slavery in Ancient Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hansen, M. H. 1991. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Hignett, C. 1952. A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodkinson, S. 2000. Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Jones, N. F. 1987. Public Organization in Ancient Greece. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Lintott, A. 1982. Violence, Civil Strife and Revolution in the Classical City, 750–330 BC. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes, eds. 1997. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rhodes, P. J. 1993. A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shimron, B. 1972. Late Sparta: The Spartan Revolution, 243–146 BC. Buffalo: SUNY. Ste Croix, G. E. M. de. 1982. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

COURTESANS. See PROSTITUTES AND COURTESANS

ENTERTAINERS, POPULAR Contrary to the high status and wealth of entertainers in the modern world, those who made a living off of entertaining others in the world of the ancient Greeks profited from it very little and confirmed by their profession their low level among the social classes. Greeks neither respected nor admired professional entertainers, but that did not stop them from making use of such entertainers in easing the burdens of life. Ancient Greeks apparently loved to watch entertainers who had acrobatic skills. They would pay such acrobats (thaumatopoioi) to liven up the mood of the marketplace, where many of them set up temporary stalls, or to enhance the festivities at private parties, such as symposia. Unlike the Romans, the Greeks did not include acrobatics in the formal programs of their public, especially religious, festivals, though they did permit such entertainers to perform during the intermission periods of those events. Many of the tricks acrobats performed in ancient Greek times would be familiar to people today. Some juggled balls, hoops, and other objects, sometimes

Recreation and Social Customs: Entertainers, Popular

dangerous ones, in a whole array of combinations and patterns, while others did complex somersaults over furniture, swords, or other obstacles; the popularity of “sword dancing,” where the acrobat somersaulted back and forth over a series of upturned swords, is made clear in the writings of Plato and Xenophon (who, of course, did not approve of such things, but watched them anyway!) and in artistic depictions, especially on pottery used at symposia. Some acrobats were masterful contortionists of their bodies, while others could manipulate their feet and toes to do things normally accomplished by hands and fingers (like pouring wine for guests at a symposion or shooting an arrow at a target). Still others walked the tightrope and engaged in all sorts of feats of daring from high above street level. Acrobats might also double as magicians (again called thaumatopoioi, but more specifically goe¯tes). Greeks enjoyed the tricks of these prestidigitators or illusionists who, again, could do the familiar things, like pulling little objects from behind a spectator’s ear or nose, making seemingly impossible escapes, breathing fire, and so on. Ancient Greeks also liked to watch singers, musicians, dancers, and actors who entertained audiences in the marketplace or on street corners for a little cash. Traveling singers were a long tradition among the Greeks, immortalized in the person of Arion of Lesbos, a sixth-century BCE kitharoˉdos (lyre player) who famously escaped from murderous, greedy sailors on the back of a dolphin after winning lots of money in Sicily and Italy from a singing tour there. Of course, Homer had long before described Demodocus and Phemius, the epitome of the traveling rhapsodes, singers of poetic tales, and much later, in Ptolemaic times, it was said that the citharode Glauke of Chios was capable of captivating animals with her talents! Singing was surely the most important form of musical entertainment for the ancient Greeks, with musical instruments serving as accompaniment to singers and dancers. The singer Arion’s instrument would have been the seven-stringed lyre, or kithara, common to the Ancient Near Eastern and Greek worlds. Backup musicians would have played this, too, as well as variations of it, and pipes and horns, as well as more “foreign” instruments adopted from the musical traditions of Asia Minor and Egypt, such as clappers, hand drums, and sistra, or rattles. Professionals, especially aule¯tai (pipe players) and kitharoˉdoi, entertained audiences in public spaces, as noted above, and at symposia and other private events. The invention of the hydraulis, a mechanized pipe organ, created a sensation in Hellenistic and especially Roman times, enhancing the mass entertainments of the latter era. The Greeks always associated dancing with poetry, singing, and playing of musical instruments. Most evidence for professional dancers as entertainers comes from the symposia of the Archaic (c. 800–490 BCE), Classical (490–323 BCE), and Hellenistic periods (323–30 BCE). At such private parties, young male singers and flute

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girls (aule¯trides) often joined the dancers, as described in literature and depicted in artworks. All of them would have been either slaves or persons of low status. Jesters (  pulaiastai, skoptolai, or geloiastai) had long been around to entertain crowds of spectators and gatherings in private homes. Related to their antics was a form of popular theater known as mimus, or mime, which grew out of the old Dorian Comedy in fifth-century BCE Sicily and Magna Graecia; it was performed by traveling groups of actors, usually three or four, though sometimes more, and, as time went on, by actresses, the latter, it was said, of ambiguous morality. They were mimologoi, “imitators” of life, who performed skits containing a mix of singing and dialogue in everyday language, as well as versifying, often impromptu and improvisational, drawn from everyday experiences (typically those familiar or humorous to the lower classes) and caricaturing the latter. Many revolved around stock characters, like the jealous mistress, the clever slave, the prowling physician, the adulterous husband, the disguised lover, the rags-to-riches hero, and so on. In the form known as paignion (playful game), they tended to be short, more improvised, fairly vulgar skits. Unlike actors in the formal theaters of the Greek world, mimologoi wore no masks and dressed in everyday costuming. This differed from the mimoˉdoi, “imitators of song,” who wore long white garments and golden crowns, as if serious tragedians, and performed sophisticated, prepared melodies. An example would be the so-called Charition mime dated to the second century BCE, which pulls elements from Homer’s Odyssey and Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. Mimoˉdoi thus parodied the famous tragic stage plays and heroic poems, and many incorporated especially lascivious, sensual elements, just like the mimologoi. Xenophon describes such a mime of Ariadne and Dionysus performed at a symposium attended by Socrates, which was so erotic that almost all the guests, married men or not, left immediately afterward in search of a similar experience for themselves. A related form of entertainment known as magodia (magic singing) also developed, in which a comic-style actor ripped off dramatic stories, turning them into low-life spoofs, parodies, and skits about lost love, begging for love, and so on, frequently involving magic potions, all the while accompanied by cymbals and large drums, which ancient Greeks would have seen as the most raucous form of music. Street theater in its various forms waxed and waned in competition with formal stage plays across the Greek world during Classical times, but became the bigger hit in the stress-filled cities of the Hellenistic Era, taking the place of the old tragedies and comedies among the general viewing audiences of the Greek communities. Hence the added development of burlesque parodies of tragedies, known as phlyakes (foolish talk), in the Greek communities of southern Italy in the fourth and third centuries BCE. The works of Rhinthon and Sciras of Tarentum stand out

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here, and soon writers elsewhere, like Sopater of Paphos, were also turning out this form of entertainment. Elite audiences also warmed up to this form of entertainment, not only watching it with everyone else but reading it among themselves in the form of literary mime. This derived from the poetry of Sophron of Syracuse, with his proverbfilled vignettes about men and women (titles include Messenger, Seamstresses, and Women Spectators at the Isthmia). Continued by his son Xenarchus and spread across the Greek world in the fifth century BCE, such literary mime petered out early in the following century, only to pick up with tremendous energy in the third century, as illustrated by Sophron’s imitators, Theocritus of Syracuse (titles include Sorceress, Syracusan Women, and Love of Cynisca) and Herodas of Cos (titles include Old Procuress, Brothel Keeper, and Jealous Woman). Like street mime, literary mime emphasized character and realism, and quite a lot of scandalous behavior in low-life scenes with everyday backdrops, but with sophisticated language and delivery, heavily allusive, that made the scenes even more laughable to their urbane readership. Although often performed by citizens of low status, slaves, freedmen, and even foreigners, ancient Greek forms of popular entertainment endured quite a long time and were part of the legacy picked up by the ancient Romans. Roman pantomime epitomized this, a sort of one-man show in which a masked actor/dancer told a tale of emotion and sorrow through gestures and movements, accompanied by musicians and singers. Perhaps reserved at first for entertainment in the private sphere, pantomime eventually entered the great festival contests of the GrecoRoman world, a clear sign of the “arrival” of the popular entertainer. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Philosophy, Cynics; Philosophy, Skeptics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater; Tragedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Family and Gender: Adultery; Blended Families; Friendship and Love; Homosexuality; Men; Sexuality; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Housing and Community: Country Life; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Leisure Activities; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups FURTHER READING Cameron, A. 1995. Callimachus and His Critics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Clauss, J. J., and M. Cuypers, eds. 2010. A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Dickie, M. W. 2001. Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World. London and New York: Routledge. Easterling, P., and E. Hall, eds. 2002. Greek and Roman Actors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fantuzzi, M., and R. L. Hunter. 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, E., and R. Wyles, eds. 2008. New Directions in Ancient Pantomime. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hutchinson, G. O. 1988. Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kowalzig, B. 2007. Singing for the Gods: Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lissarrague, F. 1990. The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Murray, O., ed. 1990. Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Murray, P., and P. Wilson, eds. 2004. Music and the Muses: The Culture of “Mousike” in the Classical Athenian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Naerebout, F. G. 1997. Attractive Performances: Ancient Greek Dance. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Nicoll, A. 1963. Masks, Mimes and Miracles: Studies in the Popular Theatre. New York: Cooper Square Publishers. Sifakis, G. M. 1967. Studies in the History of Hellenistic Drama. London: Athlone. Webster, T. B. L. 1964. Hellenistic Poetry and Art. London: Methuen. West, M. L. 1992. Ancient Greek Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. West, M. L. 1993. Greek Lyric Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

FESTIVALS Many Greek communities celebrated festivals (heortai) in honor of the same gods and heroes, though not necessarily on the same days of the year, and even when they did, these events were not regarded as one collective festival, but rather as quite distinct, civic occasions. Most had their origins in the countryside and retained agricultural elements, keeping the Greeks linked to the natural calendar; many had origins in moments of mythical or historical crisis, reminding the Greeks to reconcile with their deities for survival and blessings. All had relevance to social identity as well as social enjoyment. The festival known as Carneia played an important part in the identity of those who regarded themselves as Dorian Greek in ancestry. According to legend, the descendants of Heracles, during their invasion of the Peloponnese in the distant past, killed Carnos, a seer of the god Apollo; famine and plague resulted, and the invaders established a festival in honor of Carnos in order to expiate their crime against him. In historical times, this festival took place at Sparta and Argos on the mainland, as well as on the islands of Cos and Thera, and at the latter’s

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colony, Cyrene, in Libya, tied either to local foundation myths or to stories of conquest; across the Peloponnese and on Rhodes and the other Dodecanese Islands, Greeks named one of their months Carneios and frequently referred to Apollo as Carneios. Evidence from Sparta illustrates the essential elements of the Carneia, going back at least to the seventh century BCE. Five unmarried men chosen by lot, the so-called Carneatai, held the liturgy for organizing the festival over a four-year period; it lasted nine days in the late summer, ending at the full moon in the first half of the month. One of the Carneatai was decked out like an animal prepared for sacrifice and blessed everyone he spoke to as he ran through the town, while the others (staphylodromoi, or “grape runners”) chased after him; when they caught him, coincidentally in front of the Temple of Apollo Carneios, it meant good things from the god for the land of Sparta. The Carneate¯s was not sacrificed to Apollo, but a ram was, as a scapegoat to appease the god’s wrath for the murder of Carnos. The remainder of the festival included a banquet held in nine separate “military” tents, in each of which were twenty-seven diners (representing a cross-section of Sparta’s warrior males) who ate together on command, as well as choral performances in which ceremonial dance figured prominently. For the duration of the Carneia, the Spartans could not shed the blood of human beings, and, thus, could not engage in any sort of warfare; hence, the interference of this festival famously in Greek history, as when the Spartans did not participate in the Battle of Marathon against the Persians and sent only an advanced force (and, therefore, perhaps condemned itself to destruction for breaking the ban on bloodshed) to the Battle of Thermopylae. We know more about festivals in Athens than in any other Greek community. The Athenians, like Greek citizens elsewhere, experienced the recreational and religious benefits of festivals through much of the year. These events possessed especial links to ancient agricultural beliefs. In January, Athenian women conducted the Haloa, a festival in honor of Demeter, Kore, and Dionysus; it followed the hoeing and root-cutting performed in the Attic countryside during the early winter and included the pruning of grapevines. By the time of the festival, the first fermentation of the wine was complete, and so the women engaged in lots of wine tasting as well as raucous banqueting, while the priestesses of Eleusis imparted to them provocative thoughts on the mysteries of sexuality. At the end of January, the Lenaia honored the Maenads, mythical female followers of Dionysus. Conducted by the Basileus archoˉn and Eleusinian officiants, it consisted of a procession and mystic rituals that ended at the Lenaion sanctuary in the agora. Theatrical performances figured largely as well, with contests between tragic and especially comedic playwrights.

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In February, more pruning of the grapevines took place and the second fermentation of the wine was complete, making it fully ripe for drinking. The Aiora, or swinging festival, now took place in the Attic countryside, with girls swinging from tree swings and boys jumping on full wineskins in celebration of the vintage. This was also the time of year for the Anthesteria, when children were given their ceremonial first taste of wine (at age three) in miniature jugs, or choes, decorated with scenes of naked male babies crawling, or sometimes pushing a cart, toward a table of grapes, cakes, and wine jugs. On the first day of the celebration (the Pithoigia, or “Opening of the Jars”), priestesses opened up jars of wine, mixed it with water in front of the shrine dedicated to Dionysus of the Marshes, offered some to the god and to the little children gathered around, and consumed some themselves. There were songs and dances, evidently around a table with a pole entwined with ivy and holding a mask of Dionysus, like his thyrsus with pinecone atop it. On the day called Choes (Jugs), a ship on wheels carried Dionysus, perhaps impersonated by the Basileus archoˉn, to his “marriage” to the basilinna, while silent wine-drinking contests took place as well as sacrifices, even in private homes. The festival concluded with a third day (Chytroi, or “Pots”) on which women, chewing buckthorn, painted the doors of homes with pitch to ward off ghosts and made offerings to the dead and to the god Hermes, Guide of Souls, in the form of the panspermia (each woman carried on her head a kernos, a sort of stand holding many small pots of fruit and drink). The mixed bag of attested elements in the Anthesteria are hard to comprehend and often bizarre, but it was certainly an important annual event in the life of the polis, especially for schoolchildren, who got the time off, and for their teachers, who received their annual pay! In late May and early June, the harvesting and threshing of the grain took place in Attica. The Athenians celebrated several festivals of thanksgiving at this time. For example, they did so privately on their own farms in honor of Demeter and Kore, the goddesses of sowing, planting, and harvesting. This Thalysia had no fixed date within the harvest season and so took place on the schedule of each individual farm. The central event was an offering of a baked loaf of new grain called the thalysion arton to a statue of Demeter on the farm’s threshing floor. A public offering was also made to Apollo at the Thargelia. This consisted not only of first fruits, the thargelos (containers of newly harvested grain), but also of a pharmakos, a human scapegoat, usually someone of very low class or a criminal, who was paraded through the streets after having been well-fed, then beaten with green branches, and kicked out of town (sometimes even executed), a form of purification against divine wrath that might otherwise threaten future agricultural productivity. In June, a fertility festival took place called the Arrhephoria, named for the Arrhephoroi, the bearers of secret things. It perhaps commemorated Athena’s

Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals

legendary entrapment of Earth-born Erichthonios, mythical warrior-hero of the city, inside a container and the royal daughters who disobeyed her orders in opening the container, or his sacrifice of his own daughters to save Athens in its war against Eleusis. One set or another of the daughters associated with the Erichthonios myth were represented in the festival by two preadolescent girls who lived temporarily on the Acropolis as assistants to the priestess of Athena Polias. During the festival, which occurred at nighttime, they placed sealed baskets containing secret ritual items on their heads and carried them down into an underground chamber near the sacred precinct of Aphrodite in the Gardens (beyond the Temple of Olympian Zeus); leaving those baskets behind, they picked up others, brought them back to the Acropolis, and were then released from service to the priestess. The father of Erichthonius was the god Hephaestus, and the Athenians were unique among Greeks in honoring him, in fact, with two festivals. The Hephaestia, held every five years, consisted of great sacrifices and a terrific torch race, fire being especially sacred to the artisan god. The Chalkeia festival in October saw coppersmiths and other craftsmen in metals come out into the streets of the city to give thanks to Hephaestus, parading the tools of their trade, and his. In the early fall, the Athenians watched as a procession of women, carrying the fixings for a banquet, accompanied two young men dressed up like women, carrying branches laden with bunches of fresh grapes, all making their way from the Temple of Dionysus in Limnae to the Temple of Athena Skiras at Phaleron. Young men from each of the Athenian tribes competed in a race along the same route, the winner receiving a beverage containing flour, honey, cheese, oil, and wine. During this Oschophoria, choruses sang, while participants started off the banquet in Phaleron by shouting in alternate strains of joy and sorrow. Around the same time of year, another festival of abundance, the Pyanopsia, honored the god Apollo. Named for the meal of grains, vegetables, and beans eaten during it, this celebration saw a boy whose parents were both living carry the eiresione¯, a new, leafy branch hung with figs, along with bread loaves, cups of honey, wine, and oil, in a procession through the town; he visited private homes, laying the eiresione¯ on their doorsteps, and singing songs to the residents about open doors, joy, peace, and wealth, successful marriage, rising bread, and full cups of wine, that is, images of hospitality and prosperity. He seems to have finished at the Temple of Apollo, where he laid the eiresione¯ out to dry. Some of these Athenian festivals had parallels in other Greek communities. The Pyanopsia, for instance, bore similarities to springtime events on the island of Rhodes (involving the carrying of a swallow around town by a young boy who sang to residents, asking for wine, porridge, cheese, and bread loaves, promising a good year if received, threatening against one if not) and at the city of Thebes (where a Maypole of laurel decorated with balls of copper, purple fillets, and saffron cloth

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was presented to Apollo). At Sparta, the laurel branch (called korythale¯) figured in the Korythalia festival , which honored the goddess Artemis with fertility dancing and the sacrifice of a suckling pig (the Spartans also lay the korythale¯ in front of homes where young men and women got married). The Pithoigia of the Anthesteria was like the Boeotian festival honoring Agathos Daimon, a “benevolent spirit” to whom locals poured libations when requesting prosperity, fertility, and so on, while the Chytroi of the Anthesteria and the Pyanopsia had parallels in a Sicilian Greek festival in which men strewed fruit on the thresholds of houses from a sack of panspermia or pankarpia, offered wine from a wineskin and “health-giving” bread loaves stamped with animal images, all the while singing of good luck and wearing stag antlers on their heads! All the Ionian Greek communities celebrated their own Thargelia, and together with the Athenians and the Cycladic Islanders sent choruses and theoroi (religious observers) to the Delia, a festival honoring Apollo on the island of Delos each winter. Across the whole of the Greek world, at most places for three days, but in some communities (like Syracuse) for as long as ten, the autumn festival of the Thesmophoria was held. Married women sought fertility of all kinds from Demeter in secret ceremonies, sometimes overnight. They began with the Anodos, or “Going Up” (symbolizing Persephone’s return to the living world), followed by the Nesteia, or “Fasting” (to honor Demeter’s search for her daughter), and concluded with the Kalligeneia, or “Feast of Good Births” (during which obscene conversation imitated that which brought laughter to Demeter during the saddest part of her journey). The decayed remains of sacred piglets of Demeter (Greeks believed that a herd of pigs belonging to the swineherd Eubouleus had been swallowed into Hades’ chasm when he kidnapped Demeter’s daughter) were placed on altars in honor of the Two Goddesses and then mixed with soil and grain seed, a mystical guarantee of a blessed crop. In the world of the ancient Greeks, religious festivals took up one-third of the entire year. They witnessed feasting and merriment, in celebration of the powers of the Greek deities, certainly, but also of the bonds among citizens and the distinctive roles played by men, women, and children within each community. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Daughters; Mothers; Sexuality; Sons; Women; Food and Drink: Feasts and Banquets; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Country Life; Health and Illness; Household Religion; Plague/Epidemic Disease; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Warfare, Attitudes toward; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Priests

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and Priestesses; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Calendars; Greek Language Groups; Primary Documents: Theocritus Describes Women at a Festival (Early Third Century BCE) FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Translated by J. Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Dillon, M. P. J. 2002. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London and New York: Routledge. Hamilton, R. 1992. Choes and Anthesteria. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Humphreys, S. C. 2004. The Strangeness of Gods: Historical Perspectives on the Interpretation of Athenian Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kowalzig, B. 2007. Singing for the Gods: Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mikalson, J. D. 1975. The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Parke, H. W. 1967. The Oracles of Zeus: Dodona, Olympia, Ammon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Parke, H. W. 1977. Festivals of the Athenians. New York: Thames & Hudson. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parker, R. 2005. Polytheism and Society at Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pettersson, M. 1992. Cults of Apollo at Sparta: The Hyakinthia, the Gymnopaidiai and the Karneia. Stockholm: Svenske Institutet i Athen. Powell, A., ed. 1989. Classical Sparta: Techniques behind Her Success. London and New York: Routledge. Simon, E. 1983. Festivals of Attica. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

GYMNASIA/PALAESTRAE Since physical exercise and the training of the body for athletic events came to mean so much to the ancient Greeks, we should not be surprised by the number of facilities for such activities found across their world. Indeed such structures, known as gymnasia or palaestrae, were eventually among the most prominent in their communities, often second only to their temples and marketplaces in timing of construction and in importance. The term palaestra derives from the Greek word for wrestling, a reminder to us that this was one of the first sports, as such, acknowledged by Greek society. Although some scholars have posited that palaestra was a term specifically designating private institutions for physical exercise and athletic instruction of young boys, by Roman times, it seems that any delimited exercise ground might be referred to as a palaestra, as long as wrestling or boxing took place there regularly.

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The earliest palaestrae were deliberately located in more rustic settings outside the urban limits of cities, likely so men engaged in exercise could relax even more fully there; it is also likely that these places were the special venue of Greek aristocrats, who for generations were the most celebrated athletes in the Greek world, proud of having the luxury and the time to train for athletic competitions. Additionally, such early palaestrae likely consisted of few buildings, just what was absolutely needed for practice. Perhaps in the late Archaic Period (c. 550 BCE), perhaps sooner, ancient Greek builders began constructing covered colonnades or walkways around some palaestrae for greater privacy (especially if the latter were located within a city’s limits) and around these colonnades they erected rooms of varying sizes, all together forming a square or rectangular building. They called such structures gymnasia, from the Greek word for nude, since athletes exercised in the nude. We must remember that, in most Greek communities, physical exercise in any sort of public setting, that is, among individuals not belonging to the same household, was permissible only to men, and that men, even strangers, were allowed to see each other nude. Thus, the typical ancient gymnasium (gymnasion in Greek) may be regarded as an exercise facility designed and intended for use by a community’s adult males, specifically for men between the ages of eighteen and thirty (and especially such men within the aristocracy). In particular communities, it was not uncommon for the participants at a gymnasium to select individuals to maintain rules and decorum there. In Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), such positions had fallen under the purview of the communities themselves. So, all activities at a gymnasium were supervised by a local public official known as a gymnasiarch, attesting to the importance to which gymnasia had attained as community venues. Below the gymnasiarch worked the gymnastai, judges of physical fitness, and the paedotribai, coaches in the particular exercises. There might also be soˉphronistai and kosme¯tai, supervisors of conduct for the younger and older athletes, respectively. Gymnasia varied in size and complexity, but certain features came to be fairly common. They contained changing rooms for stripping down before exercise as well as rooms for bathing and cleaning after exercise. Most important, of course, were the facilities for exercise itself. Just about any form of exercise might be done out in the open-air field at the center of the colonnade, but certain rooms might also be set aside for various purposes. We read of rooms where wrestlers or boxers prepared themselves and other rooms in which they joined up in matched pairs; we read of rooms where men played ball games, others where they practiced running, and still others where they walked for exercise. Longer rooms might combine a variety of functions, in which wrestlers or boxers engaged in their sport at the ground level, for instance, while other men engaged in their own exercises on an

Recreation and Social Customs: Gymnasia/Palaestrae

elevated level along the sides of the room. Such a room might be referred to as a xystos and include a covered racetrack, while in larger gymnasia, a special extension (indoor or outdoor) known as a dromos or paradromis was set aside for running practice. Furthermore, some gymnasia were so big and so complex that they included orchards or gardens within their enclosures; the paths around or through these areas could also be utilized for running exercises. Gymnasia also made good places for philosophical discussions because young men congregated there, a sort of captive audience for philosophers attempting to reform or enlighten a new generation. Indeed, most gymnasia had sufficient space that teachers and other intellectuals might make use of them to conduct their lectures and other forms of instruction. They would rent out whole rooms or sections of rooms for this purpose. A very popular approach was to rent one of the gymnasium’s exedrae, large, semi-open spaces, semicircular or rectilinear in shape, designed as auditoria with permanent seating around the sides. Extra-urban gymnasia, away from the hustle and bustle of the crowded downtown (as at Athens, for example) were most famously used for intellectual purposes; we need only think of Plato’s school near the gymnasium of Academus and Aristotle’s school at the

Ruins of the main exercise building, or palaestra, at Olympia in southern Greece. At over two hundred feet on each side, this quadrangular structure was the largest of its kind in the Greek world—a gymnasium fit for the practice and training sessions of athletes who came from every Greek community to participate in the Olympic Games. (assalve/iStockphoto.com)

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Lyceum gymnasium. Gymnasia after the time of Plato and Aristotle frequently hosted musical concerts, readings from the works of famous authors, and even displays of artworks (especially those associated with the god to whom the gymnasium was dedicated or with the benefactor or benefactors who had supported it the most). By Hellenistic and Roman times, Greek gymnasia had, indeed, come to be more than just places for physical fitness and recreation; they had developed a very strong tradition of educational and cultural significance as well. Yet they were still not schools in any conventional sense; in fact, physical training came, in many communities, to supersede all other functions at the gymnasium, especially the physical training of young soldiers. Still, no self-respecting Greek community lacked its own gymnasium, and larger communities had more than one, typically funded by the local city council or by public benefactors (including the gymnasiarch himself ) as a form of tax; indeed, gymnasia cost quite a bit to build and to maintain. Even kings and emperors served as the founders or the benefactors of such institutions, an indication of the prestige and reputation that the gymnasia imparted even to the most powerful individuals of those days. The costs of constructing and maintaining gymnasia, over time, had fallen to the wealthy; so, like the ancient palaestrae, gymnasia retained an aristocratic flavor about them, something elitist. After all, even in Hellenistic and Roman times, the elite (whether noble-born or wealth-based) had the most leisure time and desire to frequent such venues. Furthermore, most gymnasia had rules, sanctioned by their communities, regarding who could not enter them, which typically meant not just no women allowed, but no slaves or freedmen, no mentally or physically disabled persons, and no workers in particular “disreputable” trades. Beyond matters of status or access, it should be remembered that Greek communities did not regard themselves as truly Greek without at least one gymnasium. In the world beyond the Greek homeland especially, wherever Greeks established colonies or ruled over other ethnic populations, gymnasia were crucial places where many markers of Greek heritage and identity were practiced and preserved. See also: Family and Gender: Men; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Boxing; Festivals; Olympic Games; Racing; Wrestling; Science and Technology: Education FURTHER READING Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, R. A. 1972. Sport in Greece and Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kyle, D. 2007. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Recreation and Social Customs: Horse Racing Miller, S. G. 2004. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Murray, O., and S. Price, eds. 1990. The Greek City from Homer to Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

HIPPODROMES. See STADIUMS AND HIPPODROMES

HORSE RACING From very earliest times in their recorded history, including the record provided by archaeological evidence, people in the ancient Greek world engaged in races on horseback and in vehicles drawn by horses. Apparently, the first purpose of horse racing had been preparation for combat for Greek cavalrymen and charioteers, the special purview of the noble class; the connection to the elite cavalry also explains the use of horse racing and chariot racing in the funeral celebrations for the fallen members of the Greek elite, a feature of Greek society going back at least to the era of Homer. Over time, more and more Greeks enjoyed watching such training exercises and funereal spectacles as a form of recreation, and more and more participants enjoyed the thrill of winning against opponents within their own Greek community and from other Greek communities. Even in much later periods of Greek history, horseback riders and racing charioteers were often still aristocrats who could afford the time and the expense of such sport, but they were also the ones who could afford to hire and train excellent jockeys and drivers from other social classes as well, thereby avoiding personally the dangers always inherent in the racing contest. Horseback racing, called hippodromia or kele¯s, employed both male and female horses, with colts and fully mature animals in different categories of competition. Of course, there were no saddles in ancient Greek times, so jockeys rode bareback; they also had no stirrups. This all meant that Greek jockeys, typically young and small of stature, had to be very skillful at balancing themselves on top of their fast-moving steeds. A jockey conveyed various vocal signals to his horse to give it directions or encouragement. In addition, Greek jockeys also made use of long whips, or mastiges, to urge their animals onward; each mastix consisted of several leather straps attached to the end of a wooden rod. The horse race itself might be nothing more than one long dash to the finish line or it might involve multiple laps around a marker, the course and distance varying according to the circumstances of the venue and the occasion. The same thing might be said of chariot racing, also called hippodromia, but more particularly harmate¯lasia; it might involve nothing more than one quick loop around the

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track or as many as twelve loops. The number of chariots that competed against one another, like the number of horses in the hippodromia, depended on the size of the track on which the race was run. A chariot driver stood on a relatively small, two-wheeled platform directing and guiding the efforts of his team of two, three, or four horses, again sometimes colts, sometimes fully grown animals. Like jockeys, charioteers employed mastiges; they also carried kentrones, long, pointed staffs, to goad on their teams. Attentive to even the slightest drag on their speed, and to the warm weather conditions in which they typically competed, drivers wore minimal clothing and attached their chariots to their teams with harnessing as light as was practical. Horse racing and especially chariot racing formed a valued part of the Greek worlds of legend and of athletics. The most influential of all Greek poets, Homer, provided an account of an impromptu chariot race in his Iliad, set during the legendary Trojan War. After the burial of Patroclus, the hero Achilles called for competitions to be held in honor of his bosom friend, and even offered the prizes that would go to the winners. First of all contests, he called for a chariot race, offering a skilled female slave and a tripod for first place, a pregnant mare for second, a cauldron for third, gold for fourth, and an urn for fifth. These prizes alone indicate the sorts of things Greeks found most valuable, and to what degree: the usefulness of money goes without saying, but it should be noted that the tripod, cauldron, and urn would all have been utilized most likely in religious practices, especially making sacrifices to the gods, and were, in fact, often offered to the gods as votive or thanksgiving gifts. Still, the slave and the horse stand out most prominently in this list: both would have served the purposes of Greek society, especially aristocratic society, which relied on slaves for much work that today would be done by wage earners and which judged a man’s worth by his stable of horses. Indeed, the contest in Homer’s story would emerge really as one over the prize mare. Eumelus, the front-runner, found himself thrown from his chariot, bruised and scraped and the wind knocked out of him, when his horses’ yoke broke. Diomedes then whipped his team harder, leaving hardly anything of a trail in the dirt, so Homer says, achieving victory, his horses drenched in sweat. Antilochus and Menelaus came in next, barely a hair’s breadth apart, thanks to a risky maneuver made earlier by Antilochus to slip past Menelaus and steal second place; Nestor had advised his son that, since others’ horses had the advantage of swiftness, Antilochos should employ strategy to succeed: keep close to the inside of the track, Nestor said, and lean yourself in to the left; push the horses more early on in the race, and always watch your lead opponent. All of this advice seemed to pay off for Antilochus, until Achilles thought of giving the prize mare to Eumelus as a consolation prize for coming in last. When Antilochus threatened to fight a duel for his

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fair prize, and Menelaus counter-threatened for his own sake, the mare did finally end up as the prize of Antilochus. Homer described this mythical chariot race in vivid, and realistic, terms: the contestants cast lots to set their places in the course, across which the chariots sped with whirlwind force, sometimes sliding smoothly across the earth and sometimes bouncing into the air; with their hearts pounding in their chests, the riders shouted commands, and blood-curdling threats, at their horses, as if they were human, and yelled out at each other also (as Menelaus did when he scolded Antilochus for his recklessness); all the while, the heads of an opponent’s horses were right behind his rival, the warmth of their breath on his back. In the Iliad, the story of the funereal chariot race ends with Achilles awarding a prize of honor to old Nestor; the latter recalled how he had scored great feats in his youth, but had not won a prize for chariot racing. The heroes of Greek myth proved their worthiness through such racing. The story of Pelops, who literally won the hand of Hippodameia in marriage through his chariot victory over her father, Oenomaus, is a prime example. According to some accounts, the Greeks commemorated that event with the Olympic Games, in which chariot racing (especially the tethrippon, or four-horse race) became a central spectacle from at least the seventh century BCE and continued so for many centuries, as did the kele¯s. Such contests provided artists the opportunity to make a living by commemorating successful jockeys, drivers, and even horses alone in the form of hundreds of painted images on vases, as well as sculpted reliefs and cast statues small and large (like the famous Jockey of Artemision). Many of these artworks would have been put on display at sports venues, like Olympia, as well as at the hometowns of the victors in equestrian events, commissioned by family, friends, or communities. Entering, and especially winning with, chariot teams in the Olympic Games not only demonstrated wealth but also contributed to the status of Greek leaders. Racing horses and drivers in these contests was a favorite strategy of Greek dictators (known as tyrants), like Cleisthenes of Sicyon and Dionysius of Syracuse; the Akragan aristocracy frequently competed in the races, even escorting their chariot victors through the streets of their city with processions of chariots. Most modern readers will have some familiarity with the dangers of ancient horse racing from its frequent depiction on television and in the movies. Not surprisingly, the greatest risks came in the making of hairpin turns around the markers at each end of the course. The fact is that no other ancient sport had the potential to cause as much physical destruction and bodily harm, even to the point of death, as did horse racing in its various forms. Yet horse racing and chariot racing remained some of the most enduring sports of the ancient world. The Olympic and other Panhellenic games were not the only ones to include them. Up and down the Greek mainland, on the islands

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of the Aegean, and in western Turkey, many places hosted such events locally, some of these including highly acrobatic spectacles of horsemanship. Equestrian events were, therefore, a widespread, and—many Greeks would likely have said—essential, aspect of community life. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Economics and Work: Animal Husbandry; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Stadiums and Hippodromes FURTHER READING Campbell, G, ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hemingway, S. 2004. The Horse and Jockey from Artemision. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sinn, U. 2000. Olympia: Cult, Sport, and Ancient Festivals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yalouris, N. 1976. The Olympic Games. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon.

LEISURE ACTIVITIES The ideal in ancient Greek society was to work for oneself and one’s family while maintaining adequate time for a life of interaction with one’s fellow citizens. This life of interaction included not just commerce and politics but also leisure (schole¯) or recreation (rhathumia, anapausis). Some leisure activities were provided by one’s community. Every one of the Greek communities celebrated religious festivals during the course of the year with seasonal regularity. These were not just solemn ritual occasions of thanksgiving in honor of the gods but also important breaks in the work routine; they offered relaxation, merriment, and excitement as everyone in the community was permitted (indeed, expected) to take time off for the festival. Some festivals sanctioned people to frolic and appear drunk in public; some offered the chance to switch roles with the high and mighty for a while. Many involved spectacle of theater, music, and dance for people to watch or participate in. Outside of such holidays, ancient Greek men enjoyed leisure activities as members of fictive brotherhoods (like phratries and eranoi) that otherwise served serious religious, legal, financial, and other functions as mutual-aid societies. Fellow phrateres or eranistai attended each other’s wedding festivities, held games and banquets in honor of their children reaching adulthood, celebrated the feast

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days of particular gods, and so on. Many men joined political clubs (hetaireiai) or craft guilds (ergasiai); these also had their recreational aspects. Hetaireiai, for example, were especially known for their regular hosting of symposia, or drinking parties, for their members and for their drunken reveling (koˉmoi) in the streets afterward. Where hetaireiai tended to provide leisure entertainment for aristocratic Greeks and ergasiai for working-class Greeks, sacred associations known as thiasoi cut across social, economic, and even ethnic boundaries, especially in cities located along trade routes (like Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, Delos, Ephesus, and so on). In a thiasos, members not only performed devotions to a god or particular set of gods but also enjoyed one another’s company in a festive atmosphere of food, drink, and entertainments. Whether alone or especially together with one another, ancient Greek men and women of all social classes and all ages loved playing music, singing, and dancing as leisure activities; they considered these activities essential to a good life and to civilized society and besides attributed them to the gods (as their magical, mysterious gift to humanity) and to the famous prophetic heroes of old, like Orpheus and Musaeus. Even great warriors, like Achilles, sang and played the lyre in their spare time. The poet Homer describes recreational dancing in his stories, especially crediting the mythical Phaeacians with exceptional artistry in their dances; these seem to have been a major feature of their banquets. According to the tale in the Odyssey, the young Phaeacian men danced round a singer and also danced in pairs for the entertainment and pleasure of the guests. This was not just mythmaking on Homer’s part; his words reflected the customs of the Greek people in real life. Historical evidence, both literary and pictorial, reveals ancient Greeks singing and dancing at weddings, on the naming days of children, at harvest time, during victory celebrations, after dinner, during koˉmoi, and on many other occasions. Many of their dances had formal qualities, like the askoliasmos (which included jumping on wineskins), the geranos (nighttime winding dance in imitation of cranes), a ball-playing dance, and many others. For motivation and relaxation, Greeks sang while working (as did Calypso at her loom) and while rowing their ships. Shepherds played single or double reed pipes (auloi) while tending their herds; these would have made sounds similar to today’s oboes and clarinets and were very popular at weddings, symposia, during koˉmoi, and so on. Many people owned tortoiseshell lyres for their own private use, as well as stringed harps or lutes (trigonoi, psalteria, etc.). They enjoyed playing clappers (krotala) as castanets and tambourines without jangles (tympana). Although singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments all had their serious roles in Greek society, especially in Greek religion, they also served as key leisure activities for private individuals and groups of friends, family, or associates.

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Like modern people, ancient Greeks spent some of their leisure time with animals kept as pets. The Greek scientist Theophrastus (contrary to the views of many other Greek intellectuals) discussed the intimate interconnections between humans and animals. Many everyday Greeks would have agreed with him. Hunters, of course, had their dogs, recorded as far back as Homer’s loving depiction of long-lived Argos (Speedy), the devoted hound of Odysseus. Fifth-century BCE gravestones from Athens depict Maltese lapdogs as the special companions of the dearly departed. Ancient Greeks also kept pet birds, Terracotta tumbler from Attica depicting eight dancing youths, c. 525–510 BCE. During a including swallows, partridges, symposion, or after-dinner drinking party, guests and bullfinches, “talky” starlings, would frequently engage in singing and dancing in celebration of their camaraderie and the blessings of magpies, ravens, and crows, singthe wine-god Dionysus; painted pottery tableware ing nightingales and blackbirds; like this example commemorated such highaccording to Homer, Penelope, spiritedness. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ wife of Odysseus, even had a Fletcher Fund, 1956) flock of geese as pets. Greek children played with pet cicadas and locusts, according to Hellenistic poetry. The elite of that era began to while away their time by keeping fishponds. Some people kept house snakes (in imitation of goddesses like Athena) and even monkeys from North Africa! Not until Roman times did pet cats come on the scene, imported from Egypt. On a more violent note, Greek men enjoyed watching cockfights in their spare time at least as far back as the second century BCE. Moreover, besides hunters who stalked their prey to provide much-needed meat for their families or professional fishermen who made their catches to sell in the market, the ancient Greek world also had its sportsmen who hunted and fished for the thrill of the chase and the test of skill against the forces of nature. Obviously, one could include all sorts of contests in a discussion of how ancient Greeks spent their leisure time. Besides games, with balls, dice, counters,

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and such, and athletics, which they loved so much in private and public, they also turned many other activities into contests for fun. For instance, at Athens, women and girls competed in one another’s homes when carding wool; in the fifth century BCE, a girl there named Melosa gained a great reputation as being the best in such private contests. Since Homeric times, Greek men and women (separately) engaged in gambling for leisure. In public settings, they bet especially on the winners of horse races, chariot races, and footraces and, in private circumstances, played all sorts of games with counters, dice, or marbles that involved a variety of stakes. The spread of literacy in the ancient Greek world, especially with the proliferation of schools in Late Classical and Hellenistic times (that is, from the fourth century BCE onward), opened up to many reading as a form of leisure activity. For those who could not read or could not read well, there were always opportunities to listen to great works of poetry, history, philosophy, biography at private or public recitations; ancient Greeks enjoyed attending readings and lectures of this sort in their spare time. The wealthy in Greek society appear to have spent much of their free time racing or gambling on horses; this became so typical that comedic playwrights frequently lambasted the rich for their addiction to horse racing (as seen in the character of Pheidippides in Aristophanes’ Clouds). In their townhouses, wealthy Greeks entertained one another at banquets, complete with musical or dance performers, acrobats, and recitations from poets or historians; they could afford to do this much more frequently and much more lavishly than most people. Yet the leisure activities of the wealthy differed from those of fellow citizens in other socioeconomic classes more in scale than in type, and this reminds us of the fundamentally shared perspective on what constituted leisure in Greek society. Along those lines, one could find everyone, from the well-off to the povertystricken, looking for some sort of leisure in the marketplaces of the ancient Greek world. The agora served for them the same purpose in this regard as the piazza does in modern Italy: people from all walks of life gathered there to spend time together, share the news of the day, gossip, joke around, and simply see and be seen. The ancient Greeks also sought moments of quiet repose (he¯sychia) in their spare time. Unlike modern people, who might go hiking or camping to escape the hustle and bustle of life, the ancients did not feel comfortable going too far into wild nature. Instead, they would take strolls along quiet streets or walks out into the countryside to clear their minds and meditate for a while, again like their modern counterparts in Mediterranean countries. Most people in the world of the ancient Greeks, because of the needs of work and other responsibilities, likely did not have as much leisure time as their cultural expectations called for. Nevertheless, the devotion of space and resources to the construction of venues for public leisure activities in ancient Greek communities

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and the many references to activities of private leisure reveal their serious appreciation for relaxation. See also: Arts: Dance; History; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Fishing; Orators and Speechwriters; Family and Gender: Weddings; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths; Food and Drink: Feasts and Banquets; Housing and Community: Country Life; Marketplaces; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Boxing; City Dionysia; Class Structure and Status; Entertainers, Popular; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Horse Racing; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Prostitutes and Courtesans; Racing; Symposia; Wrestling; Science and Technology: Education; Libraries and Literacy FURTHER READING Barringer, J. M. 2001. The Hunt in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Comotti, G. 1989. Music in Greek and Roman Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Johnson, W. A., and H. N. Parker, eds. 2009. Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kalof, L., ed. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg. Lambert, S. D. 1993. The Phratries of Attica. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lawler, L. B. 1964. The Dance in Ancient Greece. London: Adam & Charles Black. Michaelides, S. 1978. The Music of Ancient Greece: An Encyclopedia. London: Faber & Faber. Pollard, J. 1977. Birds in Greek Life and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson. Thomas, R. 1992. Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. West, M. L. 1992. Ancient Greek Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

LITURGIES, EUERGETISM, AND WELFARE Most ancient Greek communities, with notable exceptions like Sparta (at least for a certain period of its history), faced the danger of strong class divisions among their citizens as a consequence of socioeconomic inequalities. To mitigate against potential disturbances arising from such inequalities, the Greeks, going back at least as far as the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), developed customs to bridge the gap among classes. Such customs included both required liturgies and voluntary contributions from the wealthy to the rest of society. On the one hand, these customs validated the segregation of the socioeconomic classes; on the other hand, they gave individuals the opportunity to engage in the pursuit of

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honor (  philotimia) as well as proving their concern for their fellow human beings (  philanthropeia). Liturgies (leitourgiai) at Athens and elsewhere in the Greek world, for instance, were defined as a service to the community expected from its wealthiest male members. They would work for the good of the whole by sharing some of their abundant resources on occasions when the entire community had need of them. As an example, each deme or district that made up the Athenian territory assigned its liturgies to local residents of means, while the central government of Athens alone assigned close to one hundred liturgies every year to well-to-do citizens across Attica. These latter included the trie¯rarchia (in which the assigned donor took command and paid for the maintenance of one of the city-state’s warships for one year), the gymnasiarchia (in which the assigned donor had charge of one or more public gymnasia and provided the supplies needed there), the chore¯gia (in which the assigned donor recruited, trained, and funded a chorus of dithyramb singers or funded one comic performance or three tragic performances at the annual Dionysia festival), the hestiasis (in which the assigned donor provided a feast for the members of his tribe, which could amount to one-tenth of the citizen population!), the architheoria (in which the assigned donor traveled abroad to represent his community at a foreign religious festival and funded the athletes from his community who competed there), and many others associated with religious observances, especially during the Greater Panathenaia that took place every fourth year. Men were appointed to the various liturgies either by Athenian archons, tribal leaders, or deme leaders , who made their selections from a list of perhaps 1,200 names of citizens who had landed property worth three or more talents (the talent being equivalent to roughly fifty pounds of silver). The liturgies themselves could elicit considerable expenditures from donors (anywhere from half a talent to two and half talents to produce a tragic chore¯gia, for instance), which is why the Athenians reformed their customs in the mid-fourth century BCE to distribute the costs of festival liturgies among twenty “teams” (symmoriai) of rich citizens. Liturgies may have proved burdensome (which is why the Athenians, for example, instituted the antidosis procedure, by which a donor could challenge someone else richer than himself to take on the public service or face losing his property to the challenger!), but liturgies also brought with them highly-sought-after honors (symbolized in ivy crowns, bronze tripods, or even stone markers, like the choragic monument of Lysicrates). Well-to-do citizens regarded it as their special privilege to compete in rivalry with one another through such social institutions and thereby to demonstrate their great patriotism. So, even when they might have stayed within the limitations prescribed by law (such as to perform no more than one festival liturgy in every two years or one trierarchy in every three years), they frequently

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volunteered to do more. Even metics, resident aliens, offered to fund liturgies for the communities in which they lived and worked but where they had no citizenship; they, too, wished to win public favor through donations of their resources. Some communities transformed the liturgies into government positions (as did Athens near the end of the fourth century BCE under the Macedonian-appointed “lawgiver” Demetrius of Phaleron) that made use of state funds, but even in such cases, quite common in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), the need for further financing elicited more or less voluntary donations from the personal fortunes of the appointed or elected officials. Modern scholars make use of the term euergetism (from Greek euergete¯s, meaning “benefactor”) when discussing this sort of voluntary philanthropy for the benefit of a community. Thousands of dedicatory inscriptions attest to the many such patrons, even generations of them in the same family, across the Greek world. The tradition went back to Classical times (490–323 BCE); the Athenian statesman Nicias, for example, had once paid for sacrificial banquets on the island of Delos and required in return that the Delians request blessings on him from the god Apollo. Donors often recorded precise instructions for the use of their gifts and their beneficiaries often responded with quite candid demands for more benefits in the future; both donors and beneficiaries engaged in bragging over such patronage. Private benefactors bulked large in the provision of assistance to struggling communities, what one might today call welfare (perhaps translatable by Greek euporia or prosthe¯ke¯). Before the Hellenistic Era, communities and their subdivisions might provide the means of assistance to those of their citizens who struggled economically. In the late fifth century BCE, the Athenian state, for instance, provided financial relief in the form of one or two obols per day to those citizens who suffered from a verifiable incapacity to work (though scholars wonder whether this was just a short-lived emergency measure in the last phase of the Peloponnesian War). Deme assemblies, phratries (mutual aid societies), and tribal councils in Athens all found ways to assist the less fortunate among them as a benefit of membership or citizenship. Of course, Athenians had a distinct advantage over other Greeks in this regard: they stood at the center of a lucrative “empire” in the Classical Period, tribute and taxes from which supplied tens of thousands of Athenians with “government” pay and assistance. Even this advantage, though, ended for the Athenians with the collapse of their international power. In general, any assistance the poor in Greek communities might have received through state-sponsored benefactions of food (typically bread and olive oil) or money was given to the rest of the community as well; the Samians, for instance, famously decreed that everyone in their community, not just the poor, receive a monthly ration of food. Community officials, like the sitophylakes and sitometroi at Athens, worked to keep crooked grain dealers from starving the citizens, whether

Recreation and Social Customs: Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare

rich or poor, and to keep grain prices stable and relatively low, which, again, benefited all citizens, though the poor would have gained more from such government regulation. By the same token, state and private sponsorship of gymnasia, public water supply, and bathhouses in many Greek locales would have made valuable amenities available to a wide range of people, including poor citizens. Still, in the absence of charitable organizations, Greeks in need turned to public-spirited benefactors. The Athenian aristocrat and statesman Cimon served as a model for this when he opened his estates to any Athenian who needed his help, gave out money freely as he strode through town, hosted large dinners, and made donations of clothing. Charitable giving in the form of private donations of money, food, land, olive oil, and so on increased tremendously in Hellenistic times, an indication not only of the presence of great fortunes across the Greek world but also of the presence of widespread poverty. Benefactors made their donations sometimes directly to those in need, sometimes indirectly through intermediary agents or through community officials. An ancient Greek aria titled Bouygeiai instructed people to provide water for the thirsty, a crust of bread for the starving, a coin for the beggar, fire for the cold, burial for the unburied, and directions for the traveler. The Greeks seem to have generally felt that the needy were under the protection of Zeus and their fear that changing fortune or Nemesis might land anyone in need of economic assistance engendered some sense of pity for the less fortunate among them. The followers of Stoic philosophy went further by advocating a strong sense of social conscience because of the common humanity shared by all people. In this, they were opposed by those Greeks who regarded poverty as a shameful thing, even criminal if one did nothing about it, and so castigated anyone who gave to the “lazy” poor; give only to the good, said the poet Theognis of Megara, while the biographer Plutarch wrote of the many citizens ruined in his time by being overly generous to the socalled needy. The philosopher Plato envisioned official intervention in his ideal state to prevent destitution due to land hunger; there would be confiscations of excess land and redistribution as needed to maintain the citizens. The idea behind this was that the state should not allow the worthy (those able to serve the community) to become beggars; Sparta served as the model for this. Still, no Greek community ever adopted his notion. The efforts of Rhodes and Samos in Hellenistic times came closest. In a similar vein, though Plato and his pupil Aristotle loudly called for compulsory education, they would have restricted this to “real” citizens, by which they meant to leave out the lower classes in society. Plutarch, on the other hand, advocated that the poor and even slaves receive as much education as possible; in his day, this was made possible (when it was made possible) primarily by euergeteis.

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Similarly, medical writers in Greece had always called for altruism in medical care, urging physicians to treat those less fortunate without charging them a fee; epigraphic evidence in fact reveals doctors scaling back their prices or performing services pro bono, and there is even evidence of doctors paid by the community or by private benefactors to treat their patients free of charge. As in Classical Athens, where foreign potentates, like rulers in Thrace or the Black Sea region, received substantial honors in return for donations of supplies of grain and other commodities to the city-state, Greeks in Hellenistic times became quite willing to reward wealthy benefactors even among their own citizens with extraordinary positions of prestige. Those who underwrote projects (known as epidosis) in their community often secured honors not just for themselves but also for their descendants; a reputation for honor was inherited in the Greek world. Well-to-do women began to play a greater public role as patrons as well, as was the case of Phile of Priene (first century BCE), who was honored for her funding of water pipes and a fountain in her city. Hellenistic kings (like Antigonus I of Macedon and his son Demetrius Poliorcetes), their officials, ministers, and commanders enhanced their reputations through far and wide acts of euergetism, for which they received honorary statues and titles, and political favors locally. Indeed, Greek communities frequently offered honors (crowns of myrtle, olive, gold, ivy, pledges of mutual friendship, grants of citizenship, proxenia, property rights, inscriptions, statues, birthday ceremonies, even festivals) in anticipation of future benefactions from certain individuals or to advertise in an effort to gain other benefactors! The ancient Greeks long believed that the “best” people among them, that is, aristocrats, the well-to-do, and the virtuous, should be there to help out their fellow citizens in any way they could; this tradition of generosity and openhandedness went back at least to Homer’s time. Indeed, assistance to the community was perhaps the oldest and most secure foundation for social status and power in Greek society. Serving in liturgies, acting as a private benefactor, and providing welfare in some fashion created social bonds of reciprocity; conspicuous displays of one’s duties and obligations to the community brought honor. To some, such customs might have seemed like popular extortion of the wealthy, but to most, they proved status and demonstrated civic pride. See also: Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths; Hygiene; Food and Drink: Famine and Food Supply; Feasts and Banquets; Hospitality; Housing and Com­ munity: Infrastructure; Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; City-States; Democracies; Monarchies; Public Officials; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Sacrifices; Science and Technology: Education; Inscriptions; Libraries and Literacy; Medicine; Ships/Shipbuilding

Recreation and Social Customs: Olympic Games FURTHER READING Bulloch, A. W., and E. S. Gruen, eds. 1993. Images and Ideologies: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cairns, D. 1993. Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davies, J. K. 1981. Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. Salem, NH: Ayer. Dover, K. J. 1974. Greek Popular Morality. London: Basil Blackwell. Fisher, N.  R.  E. 1992. Hybris: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Aris & Phillips. Gabrielsen, V. 1994. Financing the Athenian Fleet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hands, A.  R. 1968. Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome. London: Thames & Hudson. Jones, N. F. 1987. Public Organization in Ancient Greece. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Osborne, R. 2003. Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404–323 BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Veyne, P. 1987. A History of Private Life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Wallace-Hadrill, A.  F. 1989. Patronage in Ancient Society. London and New York: Routledge.

OLYMPIC GAMES The periodos, or circuit, of Panhellenic “crown” games began with the oldest, and most famous, those held at Olympia in southern Greece in late July/early August every four years. They honored Father Zeus, the leader of the Greek pantheon, and showcased some of the greatest talents the ancient Greeks had to offer. One ancient Greek tradition attributed creation of the games to a legendary competition in chariot racing for the hand of Hippodameia, daughter of King Oenomaus of Pisa (in southern Greece); he personally raced against her suitors to test their mettle (decapitating each of them when they inevitably failed against him!) and was defeated eventually by Pelops, a newcomer from western Turkey, who arranged the sabotage of the king’s chariot that resulted in the latter’s death during the race. As the “winner,” Pelops claimed Hippodameia. To atone for his crime, Pelops founded the games. The Peloponnesians (named for Pelops) in the area centered on Pisa, especially at the sacred site of Olympia, worshipped Pelops and Hippodameia as guardian spirits from late Mycenaean times (c. 1200 BCE) at the latest. By the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), though, their worship had a serious competitor, the god Zeus. Perhaps in this connection emerged the other ancient Greek tradition about the creation of the Olympic Games, which said that

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the hero Heracles established them, after his success in cleaning out the stables of Augeas using the rivers that flowed past Olympia, and dedicated the games in honor of Zeus, his father. Perhaps as far back as the tenth century BCE, when it was just a local festival of competitions, the Olympics was probably administered by high-ranking citizens from Pisa, but its nearby rival, Elis, likely gained control over them by the time the games became the premier Panhellenic event, sometime around 776 BCE (date of the first recorded festival in historical times). The Pisans reclaimed the Olympics in the seventh century BCE, but lost it to the Eleans again in the early sixth century BCE (with perhaps brief reacquisition in the later fourth century BCE). For most of its history, then, the Olympics had Eleans as organizers, arbitrators, and especially judges. These latter, the hellenodikai, inspected and observed the athletes in the games and their trainers, verifying the Greek heritage of the former (since no one but free Greek males could compete) and their ages (since they would compete according to age group: by the third century BCE, along the lines of boys aged twelve to sixteen, adolescents aged sixteen to twenty, and men aged twenty-one and older). As at the other Panhellenic festivals, a sacred truce was declared in advance of the proceedings and agreed to by all those poleis that sent participants to the games; athletes competed as individual representatives of those communities, not as teammates as in the modern Olympics. Most of these athletes came from aristocratic families; we know the names of over eight hundred of them out of the thousands that entered all the competitions across the centuries. The sporting events of the ancient Olympics were added to and modified over time. Despite the story of the legendary chariot race for Hippodameia, originally the only Olympic event was the footrace across a distance of one stadion (about six hundred feet), from which derived the name of the racing venue, the stadium. By the end of the eighth century BCE, the stadion had been joined by the diaulos (double stadion) and the dolichos (twenty stadia). Wrestling, or pale¯, and the pentathlon came a bit later to the program. The pentathlon, traditionally accompanied by music of the aulos (a sort of flute-pitched clarinet), began with the alma (long jump), followed by the stadion, diskos (discus throw), akon (javelin throw), and pale¯. A pentathlon contestant did not have to win all five events to be declared the victor; for instance, victory was granted to the contestant who won three out of the first four pentathlon events (in which case, the wrestling match would not even take place). Many athletes competed in multiple events, especially the various races, but, interestingly, known winners of the pentathlon at Olympia were rarely the famous athletes who won at other events. The seventh century BCE saw the introduction of boxing matches, or pyx, and of the quite violent pankration, combined boxing, wrestling, and kickboxing

Recreation and Social Customs: Olympic Games

in which only gouging of eyes and biting were forbidden! In that same century, horse racing and the tethrippon (four-horse chariot race), as well as junior levels of many events, also came to the Olympics. In the sixth century BCE, they added the hoplitodromos (hoplite run, the diaulos in armor) and in the following century, the synoˉris (two-horse chariot race), the ape¯ne¯ (mule-cart race), and the kalpe¯ (mares’ race). Many of these events took place south of the stadium in the hippodrome (horse track), a much larger space between 1,800 and 3,000 feet long, today all vanished thanks to erosion. From the middle of the fifth century BCE onward, despite the apparent order in which particular events had become part of the games, the organizers arranged the Olympic program over a five-day period in such a way that the equestrian events and the pentathlon were held on the second day of the festival, boys’ and adolescents’ competitions on the third day, with the men’s races, boxing, wrestling, and pankration matches, and the hoplitodromos, all on the fourth day. The hellenodikai awarded stephanoi, or wreaths of olive, to first-place winners (no other places were recognized) and had their names recorded in various ways (we know that the scholar Hippias of Elis compiled a list of Olympic victors in the fifth century BCE), while hometowns provided their winners with the substantive prizes, such as commemorative statues, supplies of food (or invitations to dine with city officials), and money. People today remember the ancient Olympics as a sporting event, and that competitive aspect of the festival surely held great importance to the individuals and communities that participated. Even with the later addition of contests among heralds, trumpeters, flute players, lyre players, and singers in Hellenistic and Roman times, the athletic and equestrian events remained supreme in the minds of participants and spectators alike. Yet the Olympics were first and foremost a religious festival engaged in for the overriding purpose of honoring the gods, especially Zeus. Hence, before any games could begin, a sacred procession lasting two days saw pilgrims walking from Elis to Olympia, a distance of roughly thirty-six miles. Then, the first official day of the festival saw sacrifices and the swearing of oaths to Zeus on the part of all the participants, contestants, and staff, promising their good conduct during the games. On the third day of the Olympic festival, the priests of Zeus sacrificed one hundred bulls to the god, a clear demonstration of their serious religious devotion, as well as the substance for a great feast for at least the participants. Olympia’s first stadium came right into the Altis grove, the sacred center of the site where temples to Zeus and Hera (queen of the gods) were located. By late Classical times (c. 400 BCE), the stadium, demarcated with banks of earth on all sides upon which the spectators sat, had been moved further eastward from the sacred ground, but competitors still entered the stadium from the Altis and ran their races toward the Altis; there was no way to forget the religious significance

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of the games. The festival concluded on the fifth day with celebration of a victory banquet and many thanksgivings to the divine powers. Despite its accommodation of three other Panhellenic “crown” games (Nemean, Isthmian, and Pythian) from the sixth century BCE at least, and the eventual organization of all the games into professional events only for members of the associations of international winners, the ancient quadrennial Olympics remained an experience that could draw as many as 50,000 spectators from across the Greek world; these pilgrims made arduous journeys and endured the barest of conditions to attend an Olympic festival in its heyday. The ancient Olympic Games were (and still are) the longest-surviving athletic competition in history, continuing for 1,179 years, that is, staged 293 times! Only the decree of the Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 393 CE ended that unsurpassed tradition. See also: Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Boxing; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Horse Racing; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Racing; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Wrestling FURTHER READING Broneer, O. 1973. Isthmia. Vol. 2: Topography and Architecture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dillon, M. P. J. 2002. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London and New York: Routledge. Finley, M., and H. Pleket. 1976. The Olympic Games: The First Thousand Years. London: Dover. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphrey, J. 1986. Roman Circuses. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lee, H. 2001. The Program and Schedule of the Ancient Olympic Games. Hildesheim: Weidmann. Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg, eds. 1993. Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, S. G., ed. 2004. Nemea: A Guide to the Site and Museum. 2nd ed. Athens: University of California Press. Morgan, C. 1990. Athletes and Oracles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raschke, W. J., ed. 1988. The Archaeology of the Olympics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Scanlon, T. F. 1984. Greek and Roman Athletics: A Bibliography. Chicago: Ares. Sinn, U. 2000. Olympia: Cult, Sport, and Ancient Festivals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sweet, W. E. 1987. Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Recreation and Social Customs: Panathenaia

PALAESTRAE. See GYMNASIA/PALAESTRAE PANATHENAIA Now in fragments, the frieze around the central room, or naos, of the Parthenon depicts the great procession of the Panathenaia, the most important festival in Athens honoring its patron deity, Athena. Traditionally attributed to their mythical hero-founder Theseus, and celebrated every year in the middle of summer during the month called Hekatombaion (Month of One Hundred Sacrifices), the Panathenaic festival was expanded as the Greater Panathenaia in the sixth century BCE by the tyrant Pisistratus in an effort to unite all Athenians behind him and “his” goddess Athena. The later democratic government of Athens preserved this festive occasion even after the overthrow of the Pisistratid tyranny, staging the Greater Panathenaia every fourth year, while retaining the simpler Panathenaia in other years, and holding also what they termed the Little Panathenaia every year. During the Greater Panathenaia, from the twenty-fifth through the twentyseventh of Hekatombaion, Athenian authorities sponsored races of horses (like the Anthippasia pitting tribal cavalry contingents against one another in two teams) and chariots, competitions among poets (performing the Iliad and the Odyssey by turns), musicians (solo singers, lyre and flute instrumentalists), and dancers (like the Pyrrhic war dances in three age groups from the tribes), as well as athletic contests, including boys’, young adults’, and men’s races, wrestling, boxing, long jumping, javelin and discus throwing, the hoplitodromos (run of armored men), javelin throwing from horseback, the apobatai (armed warriors from the Athenian tribes who jumped on and off chariot horses), torch relays from the Grove of Academus to the Acropolis, or boat races in the Piraeus, and the mysterious euandria (which may have been some sort of contest of good looks among younger and older male citizens). Winners of these various events received as their prize one or more (indeed, even sometimes more than 100!) Panathenaic amphorae (Black Figure-painted with Athena on one side, a chariot or athlete on the other, like the famous mid-sixth-century BCE Burgon vase in the British Museum that shows a charioteer on one side and Athena striding with a spear on the other, the inscription in front of her announcing the amphora as a Panathenaic prize) filled with olive oil, the harvest of Athena’s sacred olive trees. On the twenty-eighth of the month, the grand procession in honor of Athena took place. It wound its way from the Dipylon Gate in the Kerameikos through the agora, or marketplace, stopping along the way at shrines and temples to various deities, where offerings were made. Flute players and lyre players marched in front, their tunes literally setting the tone for the event. Thousands of citizens

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came next on foot and on horseback, the men carrying their weapons of war, with the winners of the horse races and chariot races picking up the rear. These were followed by the city-state’s religious personnel and the sacrificial animals, and then citizens with sacred objects (old men selected to carry olive branches, young women selected to carry baskets of sacrificial instruments, and young men selected to carry offerings in precious metal). Behind these honored citizens marched the metics (the resident aliens in Athens) and representatives from Greek communities within the political and military orbit of Athens (so-called allies), who were required to participate (donating a cow and a suit of armor) and whose subordinate status was marked clearly by their married women carrying oak branches of Zeus Xenios (protector of outsiders) and their unmarried women carrying the folding chairs and parasols belonging to daughters of Athenian citizens. Finally, Athenians guided a boat on wheels, the sail of which consisted of the new peplos, or ceremonial gown, for the wooden statue of the goddess Athena in the Parthenon. This garment served as the key feature of the entire Panathenaia. In May, the Priestess of Athena removed the robe from the goddess’s life-size statue and, escorted by ephebes (young citizen males in military training), brought the statue down to the sea, where it was bathed, like a Greek bride before her wedding; a torchlight procession then escorted the statue back to the Parthenon where it was dressed in a new, rather plain peplos. Preadolescent Athenian girls (the Arrhephoroi) assisted the Priestess of Athena and other select women (Ergastinai) in weaving the peplos. Every fourth year, for the Greater Panathenaia, they created an even more elaborate version of the peplos, embroidering into it famous scenes from the myths of Athena and even images of the most honored Athenian men of the time. When the grand Panathenaic procession reached the foot of the Acropolis, it made a circuit around the hill, coming back again to the Propylaea, the ceremonial entrance to the Acropolis, which was greatly embellished in the time of Pericles. Then, all the participants climbed up the ramps and stairs to the top of the hill, where they separated into two groups, each winding its way through the various shrines and monuments on the Acropolis until meeting again at the eastern end, in front of the entrance to the Parthenon temple itself. Now the assembled crowd sang hymns to the goddess, made sacrifice of the animals (distributing the roasted meat to the public), and placed the sacred objects inside the temple. Most especially, the maidens of Athens removed the simpler peplos from the statue of Athena Parthenos and adorned her with the elaborate peplos described above. The Athenians also celebrated their patron goddess, along with Demeter and Persephone, with the Little Panathenaia each July, a night festival of dancing and singing, contests among choruses, and war dances. It started with a relay torch race from the shrine of Eros at the Academy through the agora to the Acropolis,

Recreation and Social Customs: Panathenaia

the winner earning the honor of lighting the ceremonial fire of Athena. At dawn the next day, a procession, escorting a small ship on wheels bearing an embroidered peplos for a sail, made its way from the Dipylon Gate through the marketplace to the Eleusinion, dedicated to Demeter and Persephone and located along the northern base of the Acropolis. Crowds climbed the hill, sacrifices were made at two altars there, and a new robing of Athena’s statue took place. The remainder of the Little Panathenaia was taken up with athletic events for prizes of olive oil and musical contests for cash prizes. From a geopolitical perspective, all of the Panathenaic celebrations illustrated the might and majesty of the city-state, its pride and prosperity, to thousands of visitors and to citizens themselves. For the latter, these events solidified their ties of camaraderie with one another and tested their talents in the service of their goddess. The various Panathenaic festivals, then, validated one’s identity as an Athenian, proving one’s belonging to Athena’s community and one’s thankfulness for all the blessings she had bestowed upon it. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Painting, Pottery; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Cloth-Making; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Men; Weddings; Women; Food and Drink: Feasts and Banquets; Olives and Olive Oil; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Leagues/Alliances; Tyrannies; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Priests and Priestesses; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Calendars FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Translated by J. Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Dillon, M. P. J. 2002. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London and New York: Routledge. Humphreys, S. C. 2004. The Strangeness of Gods: Historical Perspectives on the Interpret­ ation of Athenian Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kowalzig, B. 2007. Singing for the Gods: Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mikalson, J. D. 1975. The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Neils, J. 1992. Goddess and Polis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Neils, J. 1996. Worshipping Athena. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Parke, H. W. 1977. Festivals of the Athenians. New York: Thames & Hudson. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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PANHELLENIC GAMES The Greek passion for athletics fueled all sorts of competitive contests across their world. The most significant brought athletes from dozens of city-states to test themselves against one another at great religious festivals, the Panhellenic games. Four of those games, where winners were honored with stephanoi, or victory crowns, acquired greater prestige than the others. Over time, the organizers of these “crown” festivals, the Olympic, Nemean, Isthmian, and Pythian, scheduled the games on a staggered four-year rotation, an Olympiad as the Greeks called it, in such a way that in the first and third “Olympic years,” there was one great Panhellenic event to attend, while in the second and fourth “Olympic years,” there were two. By the second century CE, an athlete who had won in all four “crown” games held the honor periodonike¯s, from the term periodos. This “circuit” began with the oldest, and most famous, those held at Olympia in southern Greece in late July/ early August. They honored Father Zeus, the leader of the Greek pantheon, and, though traditionally attributed to mythical founders in the much more distant past, the Olympics of historic times dated back to 776 BCE. The second and fourth years of an Olympiad witnessed both the Nemean and the Isthmian Games. The festival at Nemea in the territory of the Argolid (northeast Peloponnesus) took place in late July/early August of the year following one Olympic festival and took place again in late July/early August of the year preceding the next Olympic festival—in other words, it was staged on a biennial basis. Here again games were held in honor of Zeus and legends told of their founding by either Heracles (who killed the legendary lion of Nemea) or Adrastus of Argos (who thereby commemorated the accidental death of the child Opheltes during Adrastus’ war against Thebes); this Panhellenic festival dated historically to 573 BCE. The nearby community of Cleonae administered the Nemean festival, though the Argives seized control of it and moved the games to Argos itself from 415 BCE, in the turmoil of the Peloponnesian War, until lasting peace returned to the region in the 330s BCE under Macedonian patronage (Alexander the Great of Macedon had a fondness for the symbolism of the Nemean Lion!). Although given back to Cleonae for a while, the Argives reclaimed the games again from 271 BCE and hosted them in their city until their dissolution in the third century CE. Whereas the Olympics lasted four or five days, the duration of the Nemean festival is unknown. Just as at Olympia in the fifth century BCE, in the stadium at

Recreation and Social Customs: Panhellenic Games

Nemea, athletes competed in the stadion (six-hundred-foot sprint), diaulos (double stadion), hippios (double diaulos), dolichos (roughly twenty stadia), hoplitodromos (hoplite run, the diaulos wearing helmets, shields, and grieves), as well as boxing, wrestling, pankration (a combination of boxing, wrestling, and kickboxing, in which strangleholds and finger breaking were allowed, but not biting or gouging of eyes!), and pentathlon (stadion, wrestling, javelin and discus throwing, and long jump). A later addition to the Nemean festival, as at Olympia, were the competitions among heralds, or kerykes, judged on the strength and clarity of their voices, and among trumpeters, or salpinktai, the “voices” of their instruments being similarly judged. These contests must have taken place early in the program, since winners of the former earned the honor of announcing the events of the games and winners of the latter were awarded with giving the signals for the various events. In Hellenistic times, the organizers at Nemea added competitions in flute playing, lyre playing, and singing, which did not enter the Olympic program until Roman times. Like the Olympics, the Nemean games had long included equestrian contests in a separate venue, the hippodrome, or “horse track.” Jockeys and charioteers competed for the victory of their bosses, the owners of the horses; the competitors were either servants or slaves, while the owners might be wealthy men or women, or entire communities. Equestrian events included the kele¯s (a horse race of 2.5 miles), the synoˉris (two-horse chariots over 3.5 miles), and the tethrippon (fourhorse chariots over 5.25 miles). In late April/early May in the second and fourth years of an Olympiad, the Greeks staged the other biennial event of the “crown” games, the Isthmian festival to honor Poseidon; since the ancient Greeks started their calendar years in the summer, these games would thus have fallen in the later part of their “year.” The festival took place at the sanctuary of Isthmia, about ten miles east of the wealthy commercial city-state of Corinth, which administered the events. Established as a Panhellenic celebration around 582 BCE, after probably generations of local activities, the Isthmia was attributed, like other events of the periodos, to more ancient, legendary founders (either Theseus, to atone for his murder at Isthmia of Poseidon’s violent son Sinis, or Sisyphus, who honored Ino’s unfortunate son Melicertes-Palaemon whose dead body was brought ashore at Isthmia by one of Poseidon’s dolphins). The Isthmia extended over three days in the fifth century BCE, the second and third days consisting of athletic contests (the hippios footrace being prominent) and most especially horse races and chariot races. From the early fourth century BCE and perhaps sooner, competitions also took place among poets, singers, lyre players, trumpeters, and heralds, and, more unusually, among painters. By the early Hellenistic period, Isthmia could boast two stadiums. Although the Romans

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handed over the Isthmian games to Sicyon after the destruction of Corinth in 146 BCE, the festival returned to its original location around 50 CE and flourished well into the third century CE. The Amphictyonic Council of Delphi staged the major event in the third year of the periodos, the Pythian Games to honor Apollo. Tradition attributed the founding of the festival to Apollo himself, his self-congratulation for having killed the terrible Python of Delphi. Dating back historically almost to the seventh century BCE as purely a religious singing contest, the thus-named Pythian festival became Panhellenic and attached to the cycle of Olympiads in the 580s BCE; it took place later in the summer (late August/early September) than the Olympics or the Nemea, but came to include many of the same athletic and equestrian events (and, similarly, in separate venues, a stadium in the area of the Apolline sanctuary and a hippodrome in the plain of Cirrha down below the sanctuary). Nevertheless, the element of music always dominated the Pythian Games, with its prominent contests of hymns to Apollo, lyre playing, and flute playing. Indeed, the other Panhellenic festivals likely adopted such musical competitions from the Pythian Games. Athletes and their trainers, both typically from aristocratic families, arrived a month before the start of the various “crown” games to be inspected and observed by the hellenodikai, a panel of local judges who did their best (in the absence of birth certificates and such) to verify the Greek heritage (since no one but free Greeks could compete) and the ages of the participants (since they would compete according to age group: boys aged twelve to sixteen, “beardless” youths aged sixteen to twenty, and men aged twenty-one and older). For generations, only males were allowed to enter the contests, but that began to change in the Hellenistic Era. For example, the Greek biographer Plutarch records that Aristomache of Erythrae won twice in the epic poetry contest at the Isthmia, probably in the third century BCE. In the first century CE, Hedea won a chariot race there and Triphosa, her sister, won the stadion. Women were competing at the Pythian Games also in that time period. Pilgrims came from all across the Greek world to attend these pane¯gyreis (gatherings of everyone) as a matter of devout, religious observance. They sometimes traveled for days by sea or for weeks on foot or pack animal, all the while under the protection of the sacred truce called for by the organizers of each festival and declared by the participating communities. The Panhellenic centers, sacred places usually off the beaten path and sparsely inhabited, then literally flooded with visitors, who threw up makeshift tents and barracks as their basic accommodations. Cooks and hawkers set up their booths to feed and sell to the public, while jugglers and acrobats showed up to entertain the pilgrims during the downtimes between the big events. The great Panhellenic gatherings thus took on many of the

Recreation and Social Customs: Panhellenic Games

characteristics of medieval fairs, just as did the more local Pan-Ionian festival on Delos or the Pan-Aetolian one at Thermos. Like all Greek festivals, the Panhellenic ones involved days of prayers and sacrifices to the gods being honored; these were always the central experiences. Not surprisingly, then, the first-place competitors in the various contests received sacred prizes, not lucrative ones. They earned victory crowns of wild celery (Nemea), pine or dry celery (Isthmia), bay leaf (Pythia), or olive (Olympia), all plants deemed holy by the particular gods concerned. Of course, other sorts of awards could be purchased by oneself, one’s family, or one’s community, like the famous victory odes of the poets Pindar and Bacchylides (who both seemed to have worked at all four “crown” games) or victory statues (life-size versions of modern trophies); in the late fifth century BCE, the Athenians rewarded a fellow citizen who won at any of the “crown” games with free meals at government expense for the rest of his life. Panhellenic “crown” festivals fueled prideful competition across the world of the ancient Greeks. They provided a form of ritual entertainment and a venue for the display of individual excellence, as well as a practice ground for military skills, despite their peaceful intentions. See also: Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Boxing; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Horse Racing; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Racing; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Wrestling; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups FURTHER READING Broneer, O. 1973. Isthmia. Vol. 2: Topography and Architecture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Finley, M., and H. Pleket. 1976. The Olympic Games: The First Thousand Years. London: Dover. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, J. 2002. Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Humphrey, J. 1986. Roman Circuses. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg, eds. 1993. Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, S. 2004. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Miller, S. G., ed. 2004. Nemea: A Guide to the Site and Museum. 2nd ed. Athens: University of California Press. Morgan, C. 1990. Athletes and Oracles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newby, Z. 2005. Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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PROSTITUTES AND COURTESANS In the world of the ancient Greeks, especially in their larger communities, awareness of and acceptance of prostitution was an everyday aspect of society. Male and female prostitutes (  pornoi, pornai) plied their trade openly and legally; indeed, many governments, like that of the Athenian democracy, found substantial profit in taxing prostitution. Such acceptance, however, did not equal respect. Prostitutes were regarded as of inferior status; they constituted a segregated lower class under the law in most places. In Athens, for example, the law prohibited citizens from working in the profession; prostitutes could only be foreigners, resident aliens (metics), or slaves. Male prostitutes especially suffered greater censure because of the contrast between them and citizen men, who enjoyed all the benefits of a full civic life. Still, since Archaic times at least (c. 800–490 BCE), visiting a prostitute was regarded as a normal matter of relaxation and pleasure. Prostitutes of either sex dressed in transparent clothing, often in flowery designs, and wore a lot of makeup; they often hung around outdoors to advertise their trade, but usually stayed close to the areas where they worked. Athens possessed several such “red-light” districts, especially around the Kerameikos, where one would have easily found brothels known by many names, including porneia, kasoˉria, matruleia, and euphemistically called paidiskeia (houses for girls), ergaste¯ria (workshops), or klisia (outhouses). Some brothels in Athens were actually maintained by the government itself, in the interests of keeping “busy” the many unmarried twenty- to thirty-year-old citizen males who were prohibited from having any sexual relations with citizen females who were not their wives; Athenian men generally did not marry until age thirty. Even more than Athens, the city-state of Corinth evidently served as a great hub of sex workers, especially clustered near the cult centers of Aphrodite. A story well-known to students of Greek history is that of the prostitute Neaira, recorded in a courtroom speech attributed to the famous orator Demosthenes, but generally agreed among scholars to have been written by some other Athenian speechwriter, perhaps Apollodorus. Neaira was one among seven young slave girls purchased for their beauty and adaptability by Nicarete wife of Hippias, a freedwoman herself. She treated them as if her own daughters of free status, but had

Recreation and Social Customs: Prostitutes and Courtesans

always intended to train them as future prostitutes. As they grew old enough to ply the trade, Nicarete made them available to high-paying customers who knew the risks, and experienced a thrill from them, of sleeping with supposedly citizen women. Nicarete sold off each of her “daughters” in turn until only two of them remained, Metaneira, who became the long-term mistress (that is, pallaka or concubine) of the orator Lysias, and Neaira, who was already a prostitute before the age of fifteen. Nicarete and Neaira eventually moved to Corinth, where Nicarete sold Neaira for 3,000 drachmas (about ten times the going rate for a typical highly skilled slave!) to two young clients. When these men later got married to respectable women, they sold Neaira her freedom. Phrynion, a notorious Athenian playboy, contributed the most to this freedom fund, and Neaira went to Athens with him, attending many parties among the prominent (like the famous victory celebration hosted by general Chabrias in 373 BCE). Yet the very next year Neaira robbed and abandoned Phrynion to set up shop in nearby Megara. Having found it to be a dismal place after two years of effort, she got involved with the equivalent of an ancient ambulance chaser, the Athenian Stephanus, who persuaded her to return with him to Athens with her crew and her three children (two sons and daughter Phano); Stephanus hoped to make lots of money off them all, while also claiming publicly and formally that Neaira was his legitimate wife and a free woman! He used this setup to bilk unsuspecting customers by bursting in on them while they were engaged with his “wife” and demanding extortion payments from them on the threat of worse consequences. Stephanus later arranged for Phano, who had been working as a high-class prostitute, to marry an Athenian citizen, who divorced her promptly and unceremoniously when he discovered the truth about her background. Still, Stephanus and Neaira were able to pass her off again in legitimate marriage, to an old aristocrat named Theogenes. Most ironically, he had been chosen to serve the state as chief religious official (i.e., Basileus archoˉn), and his wife Phano now shared in those most sacred duties! Personal enemies of Stephanus brought the machinations of this criminal and of Neaira and her daughter to the attention of the Areopagus Council, the highest body in the land when it came to sacred law, and they compelled Theogenes to divorce Phano. What happened when they were all hauled into court and prosecuted on charges of citizenship fraud, the setting for the “Demosthenes” speech noted above, remains unrecorded. Greeks who disapproved of prostitution criticized pornoi and pornai for their greediness and thievery, and particularly for their fakery. Prostitutes were accused of all sorts of “rebuilding” of themselves to attract callers, such as lamp-blackened eyebrows, lead-whitened and rouged skin, false breasts and buttocks fillers as in

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theater costuming, and even cork insoles for artificial height. In Greek eyes, none of these methods produced respectability. Many female metics offered a unique service to men of wealth, particularly in Athens; they worked as courtesans or professional companions (hetaerae). They were regarded as more seductive, beautiful, and clever than the average sex worker, wiser from experience and from formal education. Such courtesans might engage in sexual relations with their clients, but, more often, they provided elegant food and entertainment for their guests. Many were accomplished as musicians, artists, or even philosophers, and hence could create an environment of relations between women and men very alien and exciting in a world of largely segregated sexes; thus, they appear as frequent guests themselves at men’s symposia, the traditional after-dinner drinking parties of the Greek world. Again setting themselves apart from common prostitutes, hetaerae dressed in more concealing clothing, often veiling their heads and faces as respectable citizen women did. Still, even a prostitute or concubine could become a hetaera by purchasing her freedom and changing her mode of business. The Hellenistic poetess Nossis of Locri composed a dedicatory epigram for a courtesan named Polyarchis who had such financial success that she erected a gold-embellished statue of Aphrodite at one of the goddess’s temples, while dozens of the fictitious letters written by the nebulous author Alciphron reflect the attitudes of and about ancient courtesans. Indeed, Greek authors make mention of numerous hetaerae who gained wide notoriety. Timandra (also recorded as Damasandra), for instance, accompanied the flamboyant Athenian general Alcibiades on military campaigns, as did Theodote of Athens; indeed, the two women arranged for his burial after he was murdered in Asia Minor. Timandra was also the mother of the renowned courtesan Lais (either Lais of Corinth or Lais of Hyccara, confused together in the sources), who shared her favors with Aristippus of Cyrene, an associate of Socrates, and received a great deal of attention in many ancient texts for her tremendous beauty, boldness, and wit. Alexander the Great brought the courtesan Thais of Athens with him into the heart of Persia; indeed, the Greeks recalled that she (allegedly) encouraged Alexander and his companions to burn down the royal palace at Persepolis. The courtesan Phryne of Thespiae apparently served in the cult of Aphrodite at Athens as temple keeper and interpreter for the goddess, impersonating her in rituals (including the Panhellenic spring festival on the island of Aegina) and as a model for her statues, her own image (in gilded bronze) being placed by that of the goddess in the temple at Delphi. She evidently also served as the model for the sculptor Praxiteles’ Cnidian Venus and for the painter Apelles’ Venus Anadyomene (the latter seems to have found it hard to decide whom he regarded as more beautiful, Phryne or Lais). Perhaps the charge of impiety brought against Phryne at Athens, against which the orator Hyperides

Recreation and Social Customs: Prostitutes and Courtesans

defended her, originated somehow in misrepresentation of her religious convictions, since she was a foreigner and a courtesan. The most famous courtesan in the ancient Greek world was certainly Aspasia. A free citizen of Miletus, one of the most economically prosperous and culturally sophisticated city-states, she was perhaps dedicated by her father Axiochus to serve as an acolyte of the goddess Aphrodite in her temple there, a method ancient Greek families had of putting out unwanted female children while still bringing honor to themselves. At some point in her young life, Aspasia somehow gained freedom from her religious duties and started a “private practice” for the prominent men of her community, who were attracted to her remarkable intelligence and beauty. During the boom in building and financial patronage that took place in Athens in the 440s BCE, Aspasia moved her business there, as did other foreign courtesans, gathering several young women around her to engage in the profession of hetaera and cater to the needs of aristocratic and well-to-do Athenian men. Her establishment became internationally famous for the sorts of men, politicians, playwrights, philosophers, military commanders, and so on, who frequented it for companionship and stimulating conversation. Among the regular interlocutors were Socrates and especially Pericles. The latter, the greatest of all Athenian statesmen-generals, even divorced his wife to live with Aspasia; some four years later (441 BCE), they had a son, unabashedly named Pericles the Younger! Although illegitimate in the eyes of Athenian law, as the child of a foreign woman, he still became his father’s legal heir after the death in plague of Pericles’ two legitimate sons. The Younger Pericles, indeed, rose to become a treasurer and a commander for the city-state, until his execution in the infamous Arginusae trial of 406 BCE. In the meantime, Aspasia found herself hounded on stage and in the law courts by those who looked with suspicion at the supposed influence she exercised over prominent men, particularly Pericles. Around the year 438 BCE, for instance, she was brought to court on charges of impiety, as Phryne would be years later; at the time, the Athenians were becoming fearful of foreigners from Asia Minor bringing with them the new scientific theories of the Ionian philosophers. Apparently, the case came to nothing as a result of Pericles’ emotional plea to the jurors. Still, comic playwrights like Aristophanes quipped, only halfjokingly, that Athens had involved itself in a costly war against Samos on the side of Miletus because of demands placed upon Pericles by his mistress and that Pericles even provoked conflict between Athens and nearby Megara (a key factor in the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War) because of the kidnapping of two of Aspasia’s young courtesans by the Megarians. The comic playwright Cratinus especially went after her, and she may have even been hauled before the courts

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again on the charge of pimping free Athenian women for her lover. Aspasia faced further popular derision as “Omphale,” the Lydian queen who seduced and used Heracles, and as “Deianeira,” the wife of Heracles who inadvertently precipitated the hero’s untimely death (both references to Aspasia’s supposed power over Pericles)! After the death of Pericles in 429 BCE, Aspasia became the mistress of the wealthy cloth merchant Lysicles of Athens, who soon after turned to politics. Orators and the comedic stage insisted that Aspasia had taught him how to conduct himself in the political arena, just as the philosopher Plato wrote that Aspasia had actually taught Pericles rhetoric and wrote his speeches for him. Greek authors characterized hetaerae as adventurous, liberated, fun-loving women. Regardless of their actual behavior or actions, because of this perspective, courtesans like Aspasia became the target of growing tensions over morality, as within the Athenian general public of the later fifth century BCE. Views expressed by Greek philosophers and comedians indicate a desire for moderation in all things, including sexual behavior; many feared that legal prostitution, concubinage, and courtesanship might instead produce a society of kinaidoi (the insatiably lustful) or katapugoˉnes (the sex-crazed). After all, even in their stories, sexual maniacs, like satyrs and sileni, were marginalized, not heralded as heroes. Still, most Greeks would have regarded extramarital relations and relationships with prostitutes, concubines, or courtesans as a quite complex sort of dance consisting of favors, gifts, customs, manners, and emotions, not the rather binary scenario of victim and victimizer imagined in modern times since the Victorian Age. Indeed, most Greek authors would have agreed with the sentiments of the speechwriter Apollodorus that prostitution, concubinage, and courtesanship were fundamental aspects of society, not any less needed than marriage and family life. No wonder prostitutes, concubines, and courtesans appear so ubiquitously in ancient Greek art and literature of all kinds. See also: Arts: Dance; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Lyric; Rhetoric; Theater, Comedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Orators and Speechwriters; Slavery, Private; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Adultery; Daughters; Friendship and Love; Homosexuality; Marriage; Mothers; Sexuality; Women; Fashion and Appearance: Body, Attitudes toward; Clothing, Classical Age, Females; Cosmetics; Foreign Dress; Jewelry; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Citizenship; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Entertainers, Popular; Leisure Activities; Symposia; Primary Documents: Menander on Love Troubles and Social Mores (Late Fourth Century BCE)

Recreation and Social Customs: Racing FURTHER READING Budin, S. L. 2008. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, J. N. 1998. Courtesans and Fishcakes. New York: Harper Collins. Faraone, C. A., and L. K. McClure, eds. 2006. Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Halperin, D.  M., J.  J. Winkler, and F.  I. Zeitlin, eds. 1990. Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Henry, M. M. 1995. Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Just, R. 1991. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London and New York: Routledge. Llewellyn-Jones, L., ed. 2002. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Pomeroy, S. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken. Richlin, A. S., ed. 1992. Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stewart, A. 1998. Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

RACING Racing on foot seems to have been the oldest sport in the world of the ancient Greeks. Not surprisingly, it was something that many youngsters engaged in as an informal sort of recreation and medical writers recognized its health-giving benefits. Perhaps more significantly, racing on foot retained pride of place in all of the great athletic competitions of the ancient Greeks, always staged first before other agoˉnes, or contests. For adult males who entered into racing competition, the simplest course, the dromos, consisted of running the stadion, a distance of approximately 600 feet. Boys were expected to run less than this, either one-half or two-thirds of a stadion, depending on their ages. Girls in many Greek communities also trained to run fractions of the stadion; for a young woman of marriageable age, at the supposed peak of her training, the typical expectation was to attempt a dromos of 500 feet. For females or males, the stadion was intended to be a dromos where speed mattered most, as in modern-day sprinting sports. The majority of Greek communities, however, with the most notable exception being Sparta, expected their women to stop such exercises once married. This was commemorated in a ritualistic fashion by several women’s racing events across the Greek world. For instance, unmarried girls competed in annual running races at

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Brauron (in honor of the goddess Artemis) and at Argos (in honor of the goddess Athena). The most important footraces for women took place at Olympia on a fouryear cycle, like their male-dominated counterpart; dedicated to Hera (and hence called the Heraea), these gender-specific Panhellenic games involved the shorter stadion among unmarried young women separated into age groups, as well as perhaps chariotraces and wrestling contests. As longer courses for men developed in tandem with the various Panhellenic contests, the focus shifted from speed to physical endurance. Over time, Greek runners were able to handle not only a dromos of two stadia (diaulos), but even a dolichos Terracotta jar, or amphora, attributed to the or long dromos, which could be Euphiletos Painter and depicting the footrace at anywhere from six to as long as the Panathenaic festival, c. 530 BCE. When the Athenians celebrated this holiday in honor of their forty-five stadia, that is, anypatron goddess, Athena, they included various where from two-thirds mile to athletic contests, first of all a footrace, and awarded close to five miles; about three to its winner a jar like this one filled with olive miles seems to have been the oil from the sacred olive grove of Athena. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1914) most common dolichos. Training in longer foot racing became quite intense in a number of Greek communities. The Cretans had the greatest reputation in this regard, as evidenced in the career of Ergoteles, who won the dolichos at Olympia in 472 and 468 BCE (as well as previously at the Isthmian Games and Pythian Games and twice later at Nemea), and by the comment from the fourth-century BCE historian Xenophon who reported on the more than sixty Cretans who entered in the dolichos competition at Trapezus. In Athens, the Olympic athlete Phidippides had prepared himself so well that the city-state relied on him as an emergency messenger to carry dispatches from there to the then-allied community of Sparta. During the famous Persian assault on Athenian territory in 490 BCE, Phidippides ran approximately 149 miles in a single

Recreation and Social Customs: Racing

day to relay Athens’ request for Spartan assistance. A few days later, he covered that same distance again to report the Athenian victory over the Persians at Marathon; Phidippides collapsed dead at Sparta as a result of his overexertions on behalf of his country! As amazing as his feat might at first sound, in 1983, a modern Greek athlete proved that it could be done realistically, duplicating Phidippides’ course in about 20 hours; in his honor, the modern Greeks instituted the Spartathlon race. Foot racers in ancient times, then, like the Athenian Phidippides or the famous Argive (sometimes identified as Spartan) Ladas, engaged in careful training to regulate and improve their breathing, to strengthen their legs and lower backs, and enhance the endurance of their bodies in general against the elements. Such preparation made them excellent couriers and soldiers for their home countries, as well as fit competitors against racers from other Greek communities in the Panhellenic contests. In these latter events, say at the Olympic Games, judges typically divided the racers into groups of four; each group ran its designated course and then the winners from the various groups competed against one another. Through this process of elimination, there would eventually be one last group consisting of the very best four racers, the winner from that group receiving the coveted prize of victory. Ancient Greek foot racers did not just challenge one another in terms of speed and endurance but also in terms of weight. In the hoplitodromos, the race in armor that concluded the Panhellenic contests, they wore a helmet and greaves and carried a shield. Some of this equipment, at least, was provided by the organizers of the games; at Olympia, for instance, they stored twenty-five shields for the purpose, the shields being apparently the essential piece of equipment in this race. Torch races (lampade¯dromiai) did not take place at Olympia, despite their presence in the modern Olympics, but rather at Athens in a number of festivals dedicated to gods associated with fire, principally the Panathenaia, the Hephaestia, and the Prometheia. The Athenians also honored the god Pan and the goddess Artemis with such races. More ceremonial than competitive, they were arranged relay-style. Teams of young male runners carrying lighted torches, fitted with small shields to protect the flames from going out, ran from the Promethean altar in the shrine of Academus or from an altar in the outer Kerameikos to the altar of Eros on the Acropolis. So, racing on foot meant a great deal to the ancient Greeks. More than any other athletic activity, it served as a form of recreational exercise, as a means of training for combat, and as a display of honor to the gods. See also: Arts: Poetry, Lyric; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Men; Women; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Politics and Warfare:

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Citizenship; City-States; Hoplite Soldiers; Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Spartan Constitution; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Festivals; Gymnasia/ Palaestrae; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Science and Technology: Medicine FURTHER READING Crowther, N. 2007. Sport in Ancient Times. Westport, CT: Praeger. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, R. A. 1972. Sport in Greece and Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kyle, D. 2007. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Miller, S. G. 1991. Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Miller, S. G. 2004. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Newby, Z. 2005. Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Phillips, J., and D. Pritchard, eds. 2003. Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Tzachou-Alexandri, O., ed. 1989. Mind and Body: Athletic Contests in Ancient Greece. Athens: National Hellenic Committee.

STADIUMS AND HIPPODROMES Aside from theaters, the two most important venues for entertainment in the world of the ancient Greeks were the stadium and the hippodrome. Here tens of thousands would gather to cheer on their favorite athletes in various contests, as well as their favorite horsemen and charioteers. Considerable time and skill went into the construction of such venues, and not every Greek community could afford the expense involved to erect them, but those who did attracted visitors from far and wide to share in civic recreation and to observe great civic pride. The stadium (stadion in Greek) as a venue evolved from the improvised courses, basically just open areas of ground, used for footraces in earliest Greek history. Its name refers to a length in the Greek measurement system, one stadion equaling, on average, about 607 modern feet—on average, because each Greek community determined its own stadion; indeed, the stadion might measure as little as 580 feet in one locale and as much as 670 feet in another. So, runners in athletic competitions had to prepare themselves for various “standard distances” from stadium to stadium, which meant that there could be no record of their achievements in distance or time in absolute terms. The Greek stadium, then, consisted of an area typically some 600 feet in length where the relatively flat terrain had been further leveled and usually covered over

Recreation and Social Customs: Stadiums and Hippodromes

with compacted clay, which was “resurfaced” every two years or so. The width of stadiums varied among one another and even the same stadium did not have a uniform width (like that at Nemea whose width ranges from 76 to 88 feet). Such racing tracks were often located in shallow valleys or natural depressions in the earth. Hills nearby, or an earthen berm built up along one of the long sides of the leveled area, provided spectators with elevated vantage points; sometimes, such higher ground existed, or was built up, along all sides of the stadium. Even in later times, the natural setting of most race areas was retained, as at Nemea and Messene in the Peloponnesus or on the island of Delos, altered by man-made additions, such as stone seating with entrance tunnels underneath, colonnades and porticoes around the outside, stone water channels (for drinking and cooling off ), storm drains, sidewalks encircling the racing track, and so on. By the fourth century BCE, Greek engineers were erecting entirely man-made stadiums, such as the one at Ephesus. In this period, seating all around the perimeter had become popular, as had marking off the “far end” of the stadium with semicircular architecture as opposed to the “near end,” which retained the traditional straight structure. A dozen runners started from the far end of the stadium, each of their feet positioned along one of two parallel grooves cut into a stone strip that served as the starting line; unlike modern runners, to properly conform the stance of their bodies to this line, Greek runners stood up straight with arms extended slightly forward. A sort of starting gate, the mechanism Greeks called hysple¯nx, kept each of the runners in his place until released onto the track. At Corinth, for instance, the hysple¯nx seems to have consisted of horizontal bars tied to vertical posts that separated the runners into lanes; an official sat in a recessed pit behind the runners, positioned like the point of a triangle with the runners along the opposite “side,” and he could drop all the horizontal bars at once by means of a system of ropes, thereby releasing the runners. Greek runners raced toward the end of the stadium where the most honored spectators sat (which was also usually the most architecturally developed end of the stadium). Judges sat in a special wooden grandstand to observe the runners “outbound.” Stone distance markers were set up along both long sides of the stadium at every one hundred “feet.” Evidence suggests that some posts were inscribed with words of encouragement and direction for the racers to read and heed. At each end of the stadium were stone goal posts; runners ran from the starting line to the farthest goal post in the typical stadion race, but they turned and ran back again to the post nearer the starting line in the diaulos, or double stadion. The term “hippodrome” derives from the Greek word for “horse course,” and we know from the earliest descriptions in Greek literature that horses were raced on improvised courses very far back in Greek history. In the early seventh century BCE,

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when chariot racing was introduced into the famed Olympic Games, the need for a formalized “horse course” must have become apparent. Yet it might not have been until sometime in the following century that Olympia’s hippodrome was erected. Hippodromes were laid out in a manner similar to stadiums, but they were longer (considering the distance running horses could cover compared to running humans) and wider (since the horses ran around the track rather than back and forth as stadium runners did). At Olympia, spectators originally sat on the small hills along one side of the course; later, on the opposite side, an earthen berm, close to 1,800 feet long, was built up to accommodate more viewers. It curved to meet up with the hills on the far side of the course; at the opposite end, where the starting line was set, the directors of the games had a stoa, or portico, erected. It is unclear whether or not there was some sort of divider placed down the center of the course, but certainly toward the starting line stood the statue of Hippodamia, named for the heroine whose suitors, according to Greek myth, traditionally invented the chariot race and toward the far end stood an altar that served not only as the turning-point marker but also as the taraxippos (frightener of horses); every hippodrome apparently had one of these objects (like the strangely reflective red rock at Nemea) that in some way struck terror into the rider or charioteer as well as his horse(s), to the amusement of the crowds. The hippodrome at Olympia had the most complex starting line for horse racers and chariot racers, a set of barriers resembling in their description the stalls common to modern race tracks. As many as forty horses or chariots might have competed at one time in this “horse course,” arranged to start in a staggered fashion. The two horses or chariots closest to the left and right sides of the track were let out first, followed, in sequence, by pair after pair of horses or chariots, again one from the left side, one from the right, until that last pair, positioned at the center of the track, was let loose. Not only that, the first pair of horses or chariots started as far back as possible, while the last pair started as far forward as possible (the so-called prow-of-the-ship arrangement), in an attempt to give no jockey or charioteer an unfair head start. Hippodrome races consisted of a varied number of laps. The horseback race, or kele¯s, might take four laps, the two-horse chariot race, or synoˉris, five laps, and the four-horse chariot race, or tethrippon, eight laps. Twelve times around the track was typically viewed as the maximum. Religious structures as much as recreational ones, hippodromes contained many altars to and statues of deities, especially Poseidon, god of horses, as well as Athena and Ares, deities of competitive skill. Stadiums and hippodromes across the Greek world became centers of recreation, reverence, and rejoicing. They helped define the urban landscape of ancient times and established a legacy traceable through the Roman and Byzantine Empires to the modern day.

Recreation and Social Customs: Symposia

See also: Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Boxing; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Horse Racing; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Racing; Wrestling FURTHER READING Broneer, O. 1973. Isthmia. Vol. 2: Topography and Architecture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphrey, J. 1986. Roman Circuses. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg, eds. 1993. Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, S. G., ed. 2004. Nemea: A Guide to the Site and Museum. 2nd ed. Athens: University of California Press. Morgan, C. 1990. Athletes and Oracles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raschke, W. J., ed. 1988. The Archaeology of the Olympics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Tomlinson, R. A. 1983. Epidauros. London: Granada. Travlos, J. 1971. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. New York: Hackett Art Books.

SYMPOSIA In many Greek communities during Classical and Hellenistic times (that is, roughly 490 BCE onward), adult male citizens engaged in a sort of celebration of camaraderie known as the symposium (symposion). They evidently adopted this tradition from the Greek aristocratic clans, among whom it had originated early in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) or perhaps in the preceding Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE) as a warrior feast to prepare for or celebrate battle. Regardless of which social class eventually participated in it, the symposium retained many of its original elements, particularly drinking, singing, dancing, games, and entertainment. Any male citizen who could afford it financially might hold a symposium, on just about any night of the week, inviting whichever of his peers he preferred; the number of guests was generally small, considering that most Greek men did not have large dining halls in which to accommodate many people. The symposium ensued after the evening meal or deipnon had concluded; one’s guests at dinner typically remained for it, and perhaps a few other guests would join as well, those men who had been unable to make it for the meal. A solemn libation to the gods began the symposium, along with flute music and hymns. Then, drink and snacks were prepared and set out on tables in the

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dining room. The snacks consisted of salty and spicy nibbles, little desserts, and various cheeses, all intended to whet the appetite for more drink and cleanse the pallet. Drink consisted of wine diluted with water, either heated water or chilled water; water and wine were mixed ceremoniously in a large vase or krate¯r and then ladled out to the guests. Once everyone had a full cup, they selected the master of ceremonies for the symposium; sometimes this was done by lot, as with the throwing of dice, sometimes, one of the guests would declare himself “king” (basileus) or “leader of the drinking” (symposiarch) and the others would simply agree. In any event, the master of ceremonies had the task of determining the games for the evening (which typically included kottabos, in which participants took turns flicking drops of wine from a distance at small saucers floating in a bowl of water in an attempt to sink them or at weighted scales in an attempt to lower them), of directing the entertainment that had been hired for the festivities and the rounds of songs (skolia and silloi) sung by the guests, and, not least of all, of deciding the mixture of wine to water and the amount each guest could drink. In addition to the purposes noted so far, the symposium also served to delineate yet again the divide between men and women in the Greek world. Respectable women and girls could not attend symposia; it was, thus, first and foremost intended as an exclusive experience of male bonding. Some women did participate in symposia, however, women whose profession it was to serve men or entertain men. Thus, female slaves of varying ages, as well as their male counterparts, attended symposia to provide the food and drink for the guests, and to clean up their mess afterward. Professional female musicians (especially flute girls), singers, and dancers, whether free or slave, were also there to add their services to the entertainments of jesters, jugglers, and acrobats (all typically male slaves). Women at a symposium included especially the courtesans, hetaerae, often foreigners who, like the servants and entertainers, did not have to fit into the stereotypical roles of citizen women. Courtesans provided the men at a symposium with companionship; they engaged in witty, light-hearted conversation and flirtation, and they played games or joined in the evening’s festive entertainment. It seems likely that Plato’s famous depiction of a symposium (found in the dialogue named for the custom itself ) was modeled on the actual experiences of his mentor Socrates, who might have attended such events in the company of his friend, Aspasia of Miletus, courtesan-mistress of the famous general Pericles. Whether anything more physical happened between the women and men at Greek symposia, or between the male guests and the young slave boys who also served them (both of which certainly happened in the symposia of later generations among the Romans), is hard to determine, though some works of Greek art

Recreation and Social Customs: Symposia

(especially vase paintings) certainly suggest as much. Regardless, all the activities of females at symposia were considered improper for citizen girls and beneath the dignity of citizen women, but they were perfectly acceptable for “outsiders,” like the hetaerae. Symposia provided occasions for patronage and support of the arts; the singing, dancing, and music, for example, were all the work of professionals in their respective crafts. Often, professional poets, especially lyric or musical poets, were hired for or even invited to attend symposia. Some of the greatest examples of intense, personal, emotive Greek poetry, on themes as diverse as impassioned love, devout spirituality, sorrows of war, athletic prowess, or political turmoil, were composed by some of the finest authors at symposia. In addition, hosts purchased exquisitely painted mixing bowls and drinking goblets, as well as sculptures, wall paintings, and mosaic floors to decorate their dining rooms, all very impressive to their guests as they are to today’s archaeologists; such purchases provided employment for skilled artists of the Greek world and a chance for them to show off their talents to other potential patrons. Invitations to symposia served to validate and solidify social ties, whether obligations, friendships, family relations, or political affiliations, as well as to demonstrate those ties to the outside world. The style of the symposium itself served to show off the wealth and status of the host; no wonder, then, that in Athens the highest property classes (  pentakosiomedimnoi and hippeis), who represented both old and new wealth, always spent a lot of money on their symposia, engaging in a form of conspicuous consumption and display that everyone in town would eventually hear about. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Lyric; Family and Gender: Homosexuality; Men; Sexuality; Women; Food and Drink: Drunkenness; Hospitality; Meals; Wine; Housing and Community: Androˉn and Gynaikoˉnitis; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Entertainers, Popular; Leisure Activities; Prostitutes and Courtesans FURTHER READING Dalby, A. 1996. Sirens Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Donlan, W. 1980. The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece. Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murray, O., ed. 1990. Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nevett, L. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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THEATERS Although the point of origin for the art form of Greek theater might have been a matter of dispute in ancient times (for instance, between Athens and Corinth), no one could deny that, by the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), virtually every Greek community of any importance participated in that art form through the construction of theater complexes. Greeks considered the possession of a theater (at least one) as a requisite of civilized life, as a defining characteristic of Greek cities. The theaters of the ancient Greek world varied more in size than in architectural design. The city-state of Syracuse on the island of Sicily, under its military dictator Hieron II, created one of the largest theaters (some 450 feet across); this thirdcentury BCE version was a renovation of the older theater of the fifth century BCE, where the famous Athenian playwright Aeschylus had once staged his Persians, perhaps for the first time. At the other end of the scale was the “small” theater at Pergamum, dating from the same century as Hieron’s, capable of holding a “mere” 10,000 spectators. Along the steep southern hillside of Pergamum, however, below its sanctuary to Demeter, a larger theater consisting of some eighty tiers of stone descended like a staircase down the slope. More typical were the Hellenistic-Era theater at Miletus, the largest in Asia (that is, the Middle East) at a seating capacity of about 15,000, or the theater at Megalopolis in the western Peloponnesus, the fourth largest in the Greek world (at some 600 feet across) with a seating capacity of 21,000. Even the most famous theater, and certainly the most important culturally in the Greek world, the Theater of Dionysus in Athens, site of the annual City Dionysia festival at which so many great tragedies were staged, only had a seating capacity of some 17,000; most of what remains of the theater dates from the fourth century BCE, but the Athenians had used the site for their theatrical productions since at least the early fifth century. In fact, the Athenians were not satisfied with just having the Theater of Dionysus, for they also constructed two theaters in the harbor district of Piraeus, and even the demes (neighborhoods/villages) of Attica had small theaters of their own. The earliest Greek plays had been staged before any theater buildings even existed, and such structures were developed in response to the needs of plays and their audiences. Yet even the plays did not come first. The true center point of any Greek theater was its orche¯stra, the originally square but later circular or almostcircular space at ground level where the chorus of a play danced, sang, and moved between actors and audience. The centrality of the orche¯stra reminds us of the

Recreation and Social Customs: Theaters

original function of theatrical venues: the performance of choral odes in honor of the gods and the viewing of those performances by members of the community. Wherever they could, the ancient Greeks chose natural hollows surrounded by hills or some sort of elevation for the sites of their theaters; they hoped to take advantage of the convenient vantage points and the acoustic possibilities such natural settings afforded. The best preserved of all theater complexes, that designed by the famous Polyclitus the Younger of Argos for the southern Greek city-state of Epidaurus in about 350 BCE, still attests to the wisdom of this. The stone used and the position of the theater against a hillside create the perfect acoustic environment even today; a visitor standing where the stage once was can be heard clearly by people in the stands, without even raising his or her voice. As they erected their theaters, the Greeks built into the hollows or hillsides, shoring up the natural features in the creation of a semicircular seating area (which Athenians called “the pit,” koilon, but was most often referred to as the theatron, “place for watching”) consisting of row after row of stone benches. Spectators brought their own cushions and usually entered the theatron by means of entrances and staircases leading up from the orche¯stra and radiating across the seating like the spokes of a wheel; there are some cases where entrances allowed people to come in at the top or back of the seating area, even through tunnels carved into rocky hillsides. The best seats, those normally reserved for community leaders and

Theater of Herodes Atticus at Athens, c. 160 CE. Erected by a wealthy Athenian with connections to the Roman emperors in honor of his deceased wife Annia Regilla (an Italian woman of high status), this is one of the best preserved concert theaters, or odeia, from the ancient world, a venue for the enjoyment of instrumental and vocal performances as well as recitations of poetry and prose. (Corel)

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honored guests, were located down in front; in some places, like the Theater of Dionysus at Athens, these seats were not the benches of stone upon which everyone else had to sit, but actually chairs of stone, indeed marble, carved for much greater personal comfort. Besides the orche¯stra, the tiers of seating, and whatever walls were necessary to support the latter, the other major feature of the Greek theaters was the stage, the ske¯ne¯; it was developed from the walls or porticoes frequently constructed to form acoustic barriers behind orchestras. Greek tradition (or at least Athenian) had it that the Theater of Dionysus was the first to possess a permanent stage of stone, erected sometime in the 490s BCE, after the unfortunate collapse of the temporary wooden platforms utilized up to that time. Since so many Greek communities imitated the form of this particular theater, it comes as no surprise how quickly the custom of a permanent stage, and indeed stage buildings, spread across the Greek world. Movement between the orchestra and the stage was accomplished by means of wooden platforms and staircases. Atop the stage, there might be a building or backdrop constructed of wood, or even a stone structure. Traditionally, its façade had three doorways, each of which “led” to a different destination for the characters, usually the palace (in the center), the harbor or road out of town (the left), and the downtown (the right). Even if the stage building was made of stone, there would often be a complex wooden framework and backdrop in front of it to effect changes of scene by means of painted, sliding panels and turning prisms. Actors sometimes stood upon the roof of the stage building, or propelled themselves out from it and above the stage by means of me¯chanai, cranes with harness devices operated by ropes and pulleys. The whole concept behind theaters in the Greek world was that they should be accessible to as many citizens as possible; hence, the typically cheap price of a ticket—equivalent to roughly a cup of wine. In Athens, the government itself paid the cost for those too poor to afford this small luxury; this again reminds us of the significance of theater in the communal life of the Athenians. In Hellenistic times at least, the Athenian audience could even partake of wine and food served during performances. Greek communities and sacred sites made use of their theaters for far more than just the staging of tragedies and comedies, though. From the early sixth century BCE onward, the Amphictyonic League, for example, staged the Pythian Games (one of the four great Panhellenic competitions) in its theater at the shrine of Delphi, including musical and athletic contests. The city-state of Ephesus in western Asia Minor laid out a theater in the second century BCE (later enlarged by the Roman Emperors Claudius and Nero) designed deliberately deeper than usual for the purpose of staging competitions of various kinds. The Theater of Dionysus at Athens, like many others, also served a civic function as a convenient venue for the holding of public meetings or making of announcements to large numbers of citizens all at one time.

Recreation and Social Customs: Wrestling

Not surprisingly, the Romans, as cultural heirs of the Greeks, renovated and erected theaters in the old Greek communities and built brand new ones across their empire. But they were not the first to imitate this entertainment venue for themselves; two of the best known theaters to tourists in the Mediterranean region are those at Pompeii in southern Italy, the larger one built in the fifth century BCE, long before the Romans ever came there. Clearly, the original Campanian settlers, speakers of the Oscan language, had experienced strong cultural influence from the nearby Greek colonies. Later, under the Romans, the larger theater for stage plays was joined, right next door, by a smaller theater, or oˉdeion, as the Greeks would have called it, for musical concerts, dance recitals, and guest lecturers. Similarly, populations across the Middle East, like the inhabitants of Petra in Jordan or those of Palmyra in Syria, erected their own theaters (in the first and second centuries CE, respectively) as part of their adoption of Greek cultural elements. By that time, the style of the Hellenistic Era, to construct freestanding theaters of stone, had become most common, especially to satisfy the image-making desired by communities and their leaders. This approach permeated the world of the Romans, as they spread Greek culture far and wide. Again, to possess a theater in one’s community announced its civilized character and theaters across the Roman Empire, like those of the Greek world, fulfilled many functions necessary to communal life beyond entertainment. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Painting, Walls/Panels; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Housing and Commun­ ity: Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods FURTHER READING Bieber, M. 1961. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lawrence, A. W. 1967. Greek Architecture. 2nd ed. London: Penguin. Ley, G. 1991. A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. 1968. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. 2nd ed. Revised by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Webster, T. B. L. 1956. Greek Theatre Production. London: Methuen.

WRESTLING We read of wrestling among the ancient Greeks, what they called pale¯, as far back as the epic tales of Homer, especially the Odyssey; we see evidence of wrestling in

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numerous painted vases from ancient Greek artists going back to the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE). At local games and at the big Panhellenic festivals, wrestling featured as one of the most popular and most standard agoˉnes (contests) in its own right. Some of its elements were included in the pankration, a quite violent form of ancient Greek kickboxing, while the pentathlon, one of the most prestigious of ancient Greek athletic contests, concluded with a wrestling match. In Homer’s time, at least judging from his stories, there appears to have been no custom of oiling up the body before a match, but this became standard practice among the Greeks in all subsequent generations. Indeed, they developed an interesting combination of customs in preparation for the wrestling agoˉn. The athletes would anoint themselves, or be anointed by their trainers or assistants, with olive oil, in a massaging technique that would relax the athletes’ muscles and tighten or close their pores, reducing the sweat produced during the contest; after oiling up, they would dust themselves with sand, which would, of course, stick better to the oiled body, which would thus be rendered easier to grasp by their opponent. These customs became so common and so important that many Greek gymnasia were designed specifically to contain a room for oiling the wrestlers and another room for sand-dusting them. Wrestlers typically practiced and competed in the open courtyard, the palaestra or peristyle, of a gymnasium, with spectators and judges standing around to observe the contest. The antagonists approached each other with arms lifted forward and above their heads in a stance meant to deny their opponent any sort of firm hold on hands, arms, or shoulders; the thinking was that grabbing one another’s torsos meant nothing because, as long as one’s opponent’s hands and arms were free, he could escape. So, each worked first of all to force his opponent to lower his arms into combat position; then, head-to-head, they began to grapple for a hold on those hands, arms, and shoulders, striving to bend them toward the ground while not giving an inch themselves. They also aimed for a hold on the legs by which they might throw their opponent. Wrestlers might also use their legs and feet to gain an advantage in the contest, say by kicking at the back of the knee to topple their antagonist. In one form of the ancient Greek wrestling match, the goal of the contestants was to throw their opponent three times within the combat area demarcated by the judges; this would result in a declaration of victory for the one who was not thrown so often. Neither of the contestants could attempt to prevent one another from rising again during the match. In another style of contest, however, the fallen wrestler would soon find himself pinned by the one who had thrown him; the two antagonists would then struggle against one another on the ground or on their knees until the judge declared the winner or until one of them gave up. This form especially involved the encircling of one’s opponent to prevent him from freeing himself by use of hands, arms, legs, or feet. Two wrestlers often found themselves

Recreation and Social Customs: Wrestling

thus entwined like a pretzel, the legs and arms of one locking the legs and arms of the other in a position from which there could be no escape. As in boxing among the ancient Greeks, in wrestling there were no weight limits or weight classes, so mismatched pairs were common and even expected. Again similarly, there were no rounds or rest periods during the match and no time limit on the contest. All this demanded that ancient Greek wrestlers have excellent training, and the very best wrestling trainers went down in history. A fine example is Melesias of Athens, himself a winner known for his strength and swiftness in several Panhellenic contests among boys and men, who later prepared young wrestlers like Alcimedon, Timasarchus, and Alcimidas, all from the island of Aegina, for renowned victories in their own agoˉnes over the course of more than a decade. Ancient Greek wrestling involved many methods, or sche¯mata, for defeating one’s adversary, even allowing deliberate physical injury in some cases. In general, however, success at wrestling required endurance, refined maneuvers skillfully executed, and a sort of psychological “warfare,” as one searched out the weaknesses of one’s opponent while also fooling that opponent into making mistakes, all in order to exploit the latter to one’s own advantage. When, according to Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Menelaus of Sparta wished for the return of Odysseus, he conjured up the memory of Odysseus’ renowned success in a wrestling match. Menelaus prayed to the gods for a repetition of the victorious “throw” in that contest in Odysseus’ future triumph over the insolent suitors, who were pursuing his wife Penelope while eating her and their son Telemachus out of house and home. That the foremost poet of Greece could see such a vivid parallel between success in battle and success in wrestling suggests to us how much value the Greeks placed on that particular sport. See also: Arts: Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: Athletics; Boxing; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Primary Documents: Pindar Celebrates a Wrestling Champion (c. 463 BCE) FURTHER READING Crowther, N. 2007. Sport in Ancient Times. Westport, CT: Praeger. Decker, W. 1992. Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt. Translated by A. Guttman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Finley, M., and H. Pleket. 1976. The Olympic Games: The First Thousand Years. London: Dover. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Kyle, D. 1987. Athletics in Ancient Athens. Leiden: Brill. Lee, H. 2001. The Program and Schedule of the Ancient Olympic Games. Hildesheim: Weidmann. Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg, eds. 1993. Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, S. 2004. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Morgan, C. 1990. Athletes and Oracles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olivová, V. 1984. Sports and Games in the Ancient World. London: Orbis. Poliakoff, M. 1987. Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition, Violence, and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Scanlon, T. F. 1984. Greek and Roman Athletics: A Bibliography. Chicago: Ares Publishers. Sinn, U. 2000. Olympia: Cult, Sport, and Ancient Festivals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sweet, W. E. 1987. Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

RELIGION AND BELIEFS

INTRODUCTION Religion bound all ancient Greeks together regardless of particular political or social systems. The Greeks saw religious experience in just about every aspect of life. They believed that the world consisted of eternal, animate beings with the same sorts of virtues and vices as themselves, that these gods had created humans, and that they would rule over deceased humans in the afterlife just as they did over living humans in this life. They loved and feared their gods, who could bring tranquility or madness, and attempted in myriad ways to ascertain the will of the divine on matters ranging from the personal, such as whether or not to marry, to the geopolitical, such as whether or not to wage war against a rival state. Ancient Greeks prayed to the gods for personal health and the health of their families and livestock, for economic prosperity, for success in diplomacy, politics, and warfare. They offered gifts of food and drink to the divine in thanksgiving for perceived and expected blessings and welcomed opportunities to commune with the divine through magic, divination, and mysterious rituals; indeed, the ancient Greeks believed that the gods “seized” certain individuals as prophets or oracles to serve as their spokespersons among humans. Over the course of their history, the Greeks also associated with the divine particularly gifted persons, those who seemed somehow greater than the average or “immortal” in their achievements; such demigods, legendary and historical heroes, were welcomed into the company of the divine upon their deaths. No other ancient culture developed so rich a tradition of storytelling to explain the nexus of human-divine relations as did the Greeks, nor one with such profound and widespread influence on so many other societies that came after them.

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AFTERLIFE/UNDERWORLD From the earliest times in their history, as recorded in the archaeological and literary record, the ancient Greeks believed in some sort of life after death, usually situating this in a world beneath the earth. Over the generations, they spent much effort imagining and describing this afterlife/underworld and explaining its purposes. The Mycenaean Greeks (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) deposited grave goods with their dead; some of their shaft and tholos tombs even contained valuable items, like ceremonial armor and weapons, as well as drinking vessels and jewelry of gold. These artifacts suggest that these earliest-known Greeks, or at least the elite among them, believed in some sort of afterlife in which they would benefit from having their richest possessions with them. Centuries later, Homer appears to have captured the typical Greek’s image of that afterlife in his tale about Odysseus’ encounter with the underworld realm of Hades. The poet describes the entrance to the Halls of Hades as past the stream of Ocean, that is, far from the inhabited world of humans, in a grove of poplars and willows sacred to the goddess Persephone, Queen of the Dead. There stood a pinnacle of rock, flanked by the River of Fire (Phlegethon) and the River of Lamentation (Cocytus), which poured below into the River of Sorrow (Acheron). Later in his tale, Homer describes the arrival of the souls of the suitors (whom Odysseus had by then killed) with the god Hermes as their guide. The common Greek belief was that Hermes Psychopompos (Guide of Souls) led one’s psyche¯ (breath of life or spirit) from the world of life above ground to its new eternal home below the earth. The suitors’ spirits encountered the souls of other deceased heroes, who, apparently, had a habit of gathering in groups (like those surrounding the hero Achilles and the hero Agamemnon, respectively), and even discussed their fates and funerals, and, of course, the destruction of the suitors themselves. Yet most Greeks of Homer’s time, and evidently for several centuries to come, would have assumed that once Death (personified as the god Thanatos, son of the Night) had arrived to separate one’s psyche¯ from one’s soˉma (body), it rendered one’s spirit fairly witless, without much strength, unable to converse or experience sensation, except perhaps the sadness of the separation of body and soul. Odysseus’ deceased mother, Anticleia, behaved in this way until she underwent a sort of reanimation by consuming a blood sacrifice prepared by her son, which temporarily reunited her faint spirit with the bodily force. According to Homer, such sacrifice in the grove of Persephone actually lured forth the spirits of the dead to tell their tales to Odysseus and his comrades. It is unclear whether Odysseus and his comrades actually entered the underworld. Yet they were somehow enabled to see beyond those souls who came to them

Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld

for reanimation into the realm of Hades, the meadows covered in asphodel, which the rivers of the underworld (including the Styx, source of the Cocytus) watered as a sort of marshland. By the Classical Age at least (490–323 BCE), the Greeks had developed a much more complex geography for the vast, shadowy Halls of Hades. They had come to believe that one’s psyche¯ rode in a boat piloted by the god Charon in order to cross into the realm of the dead. They still subscribed to Homer’s notion of the “widegated house of Hades” into which “all pass but none return,” but now they saw exit as prevented by the fearsome three-headed dog, Cer- Terracotta jar, or amphora, from Attica depicting berus; the eighth-century BCE Cerberus with Hermes, Athena, and Heracles, c. 525–500 BCE. The mythical guard dog of the poet Hesiod said that Cerberus Underworld, here shown with two heads (though behaved gently toward newly most moderns imagine him with the traditional arrived souls, but would devour three), prevented the souls of the dead from returning to the land of the living. (The Metropolitan those who attempted to escape. Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1906) Generally, Greeks believed that most deceased humans existed for the rest of time as wandering, shadowy spirits in the meadows of Hades. Ever since Homer’s day, though, they also considered that particular human beings had been such heinous criminals in life that they deserved punishment in the afterlife. Odysseus had witnessed the punishments meted out to Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus, for instance, each of whom underwent eternal tortures to suit his crimes, and he identified gold-sceptered Minos of Crete as lord of judgment in the underworld, crowded around by souls waiting to learn of their fate. Hesiod and many later Greeks believed that such punished spirits were condemned to Tartarus, the deepest well in the Halls of Hades. With Hesiod’s writings come the first extant description of Tartarus, enshrouded by triple darkness, encircled by a bronze barrier, the threshold of which could be reached after a journey of nine nights and days from the Earth’s surface, the pit’s bottom after a whole year’s journey. The stories we know of punished “sinners” in the Greek underworld concern mythical figures. Tantalus, for example, was son of Zeus and the nymph Plutone;

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having thirsted for full divinity, Tantalus stole the food of the gods and killed his own son as a sacrifice in an attempt to appease them. The gods punished Tantalus through eternal hunger for fruit hanging from a tree above his head and thirst for water from a pool at his feet, neither of which he could ever reach. Yet, by the early fifth century BCE, the poet Pindar could sing to Theron of Akragas about the stern and inevitable punishment in the afterlife for anyone who had been lawless in this life, and about the rewards for the good who keep their promises; they will live forever after on the Isles of the Blest (Makaroˉn Nasoi), surrounded by the gods, where flowers of gold grow on land and sea, where the sun shines long, where there are no more tears and there is no more toil. Homer and Hesiod had similarly described such a place for those heroes who had won the favor of the gods, calling it Elysion, winterless islands at the western end of the Earth. By Hellenistic times perhaps (323–30 BCE), and certainly in the Roman era, many Greeks had come to view the fields of asphodel in Hades’ Realm as being Elysium (to use the Roman spelling) and, again, had come to consider this a place of reward for any virtuous humans. The playwright Aeschylus, in his Suppliant Maidens, has the character Danaus speak of “another Zeus,” that is, Hades, who holds a last judgment upon misdeeds in the afterlife. Like many other Greeks of the Classical Age, he had picked up on the notions of rewards for some souls and penalties for others. Elaborating on the imagery of earlier authors, Classical Greeks, like the philosopher Plato, saw themselves as awaiting the final judgment of Minos and his brother Rhadamanthys; the supposed first lawgivers among the Greeks would act in death as the last agents of the ultimate laws. Such judgment in the underworld became crucial to the ethically focused philosophy of Plato, since he came to have no doubt about the immortality of the soul, especially its rational part, and the essential justice of the universe, which must reward the good and punish the bad. Indeed, the growth of ethical philosophy in Late Classical and Hellenistic times (that is, from the fourth century BCE onward) ensured that the afterlife became first and foremost a place of judgment in the general Greek mindset. The philosophical schools devoted much attention to the nature of the psyche¯ (whether Plato’s tripartite soul, Aristotle’s active energy of life, Epicurus’ refined atomic matter, or the Stoics’ pneuma in eight parts!). In contrast to the other schools, Epicureans obsessed over reassuring themselves that there was no afterlife to eagerly await or to fear, since one’s atomic soul would simply decompose and reintegrate with the universe upon death. Stoic philosophers gave their readers and audiences more to ponder, as they argued over what became of the soul after death and developed divergent viewpoints on the question. Some held to the position of Cleanthes (fourth/third century

Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld

BCE), who concluded that everyone’s soul survives death, enduring indeed until the end of time itself. Others followed the view of Chrysippus (third century BCE) that only strong souls, that is, the wisest and most virtuous, did so. In neither case, however, did Stoics teach that a personal afterlife would take place. This was because of their belief about what the soul is and where it comes from. Most Stoics agreed that the soul consists of a refined substance, the purest form of matter, which is part of the divine fire or energy of the cosmos. Since this spark was generally thought to descend through the aether that surrounds the Earth in order to inhabit and animate the body (though some suggested that it was also possible for the psyche¯ to pass from parents to children), at death, it was believed to return to where it had begun, to achieve reunion with the Eternal Source of all things. Aided by the increasing interest in mystery cults (such as the age-old promises of Kore-Persephone to protect her followers in the afterlife) during Late Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman times, Greek belief in life after death remained strong. Thus, conceptualizing the underworld continued to capture the ancient Greek imagination. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Family and Gender: Burial; Death and Dying; Mourning/Memorialization; Housing and Community: Household Religion; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Myths and Heroes; Orphism; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Albinus, L. 2000. The House of Hades: Studies in Ancient Greek Eschatology. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Bernstein, A. E. 1993. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Bremmer, J. 1983. The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davies, M. 2011. The Soul of the Greeks: An Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edmonds, R. G. 2004. Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the “Orphic” Gold Tablets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Johnston, S. I. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Long, A. A. 1980. Soul and Body in Stoicism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1996. “Reading” Greek Death: To the End of the Classical Period. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stilwell, G. A. 2005. Afterlife: Post-Mortem Judgments in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. New York: iUniverse.

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ASYLUM In the ancient Greek world, the sanctuaries of the gods were regarded as “untouchable” places, so sacred that no person or thing inside them could be harmed or seized. Doing so would incur the divine wrath, especially that of Zeus, who was said to have care over suppliants. So, it was not uncommon for those individuals who felt threatened in some way, especially with severe punishment at the hands of their fellow citizens or capture and execution at the hands of their enemies in wartime, to seek the sacred as a space of asylum (asylia in ancient Greek). From their earliest recorded history, widely accepted ancient Greek custom allowed private individuals as well as governments to seize the goods or plunder the land of foreign individuals or states that had caused them losses, especially as a result of crooked or failed trade deals and plundering or destruction in warfare. This sort of legitimate seizure (syle¯) served, then, as a method of reprisal and recompense. Issues naturally arose for those persons who found themselves victimized in such reprisals, taken advantage of or harmed in retaliation for debts or injuries not caused by them but allegedly by their fellow citizens. This could also befall vulnerable places in a country, particularly sanctuaries, which had no fortifications or other forms of defense and where the devout regularly deposited temptingly expensive offerings to the gods. Asylum, or asylia, thus, originally meant inviolability from seizure or despoliation, a privilege recognized first as belonging to sacred spaces, literally the possessions of the gods, and including the persons who sought refuge in those spaces. In a sense, such persons, usually clinging to the statues or the altars of the divine presence, became part of the god’s possessions while there. The ancient Greeks generally had tremendous respect for this spoken, but uncodified, custom of the inviolability of suppliants in places of asylum. They certainly remembered the cases where this custom was not respected. One such case involved Pausanias of Sparta, regent to the young king Pleistarchus in the early fifth century BCE and victorious general against the Persians in the Battle of Plataea. Almost a decade after that victory, Pausanias was recalled to Sparta on charges of treacherously negotiating with the enemy. The evidence against him being at first inconclusive, he was granted his freedom, but when incriminating letters seemed to attest to his dubious relations with Persian leaders and even to his complicity in plotting a helot revolt, Pausanias found himself on the verge of being arrested in full public view by leaders of his own government. To avoid this fate, he ran to the Temple of Athena of the Brazen House, one of the most important sanctuaries in Sparta, and sought the protection and the judgment of the gods upon him. Spartan leaders sealed up the building until he was on the point of starving

Religion and Beliefs: Asylum

to death, then removed him in his final moments of life. Seeking the refuge of the gods had apparently not done much for Pausanias, but the Oracle of Delphi later demanded that the Spartans atone for his death by burying him within the precinct of Athena’s temple, evidently a show of divine favor for him. His associate Themistocles, the famous Athenian leader in the Persian Wars, also found himself implicated with Pausanias; his people had already exiled him, but he still sought refuge from them and from the Spartans by claiming the right of asylum in Corcyra. Themistocles had earned that right from the Corcyraeans as their benefactor in previous times, but they feared the consequences of granting him asylum and so he had to move on. Decades later, in the lead-up to the Peloponnesian War, they suffered divine punishment, it was thought, for this denial when war erupted between Corcyra and Corinth and, even more so, during the Peloponnesian War, when terrible civil war devastated Corcyra itself. Asylum, thus, seems to have been disregarded quite a bit in the ancient Greek world. The most glaring instance of this occurred back in the seventh century BCE, in the aftermath of Cylon’s abortive attempt to seize control of Athens. Cylon evidently escaped, but his supporters sought the protection of the Temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis. Promised safe conduct from there, these men were instead summarily executed by their own fellow citizens almost as soon as they were led away from the sacred space; in consequence, the executioners and their descendants (including the prominent Alcmaeonid family) incurred a long-lasting curse for murder. The Spartans were no better than the Athenians in this regard and equally suffered a terrible curse for contravening the right of asylia. They once lured out from the Temple of Poseidon at Taenarum a number of helots who had taken refuge there; all were summarily killed. When an earthquake devastated Sparta in 464 BCE and provoked a helot uprising, the Spartans saw this as the curse of Taenarum, the wrath of Poseidon for the profanation of his divine protection. In an effort to prevent this cycle of human misbehavior toward sanctuaries and their refugees and consequent divine retribution, Greek communities in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) issued very public decrees granting asylia to protect religious sanctuaries from attack and despoliation, especially decrees guaranteeing such privileges to sacred spaces belonging to other communities. Hence, places like Delos, Elis, and Delphi, which had always been regarded with great sanctity across the Greek world, received such grants from a number of states as acts of piety and magnanimity. Some Greek communities and sanctuaries in Hellenistic times even sought out such grants to be conferred upon them, indicating not only their desire for international honor but also the continuing need for such protections. In legend, the hero Orestes fled from the vengeance of the divine Furies first to Delphi, in the sanctuary of Apollo, and finally to Athens, in the sanctuary of

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Athena. His characteristic image, the suppliant clinging to the statue of a god, reflected a real custom among the ancient Greeks. Individuals, fearing personal seizure for actual or alleged wrongdoing, went looking for the protection of the gods and hoped to find it in the inner sanctums of their sacred spaces, ideally places of untouchability. See also: Economics and Work: Merchants and Markets; Piracy and Banditry; Slavery, Public; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Resident Aliens, Immigrants, and Foreigners; Politics and Warfare: Civil War; Diplomacy; Religion and Beliefs: Oracles; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg, eds. 1995. Greek Sanctuaries. London and New York: Routledge. Rigsby, K. 1996. Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

BACCHIC WORSHIP No other god appears more frequently in ancient Greek art than Dionysus, also called Bacchus. Typically remembered today as simply the god of wine and intoxication, Dionysus held much greater complexity for the ancients. They understood him as a being that traversed natural and societal boundaries, sometimes behaving like a human, sometimes like an animal, appearing sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine; indeed, Dionysus deliberately challenged any established norms, human and divine. Bacchic worship sought communion with this paradoxical deity through the ecstatic experience of his essence in this lifetime and through the reversal of death into life in the afterworld. The very origin of Dionysus was not agreed upon by all ancient Greeks, which allowed for various interpretations about the god’s significance. All Greeks believed that Zeus, highest of the Greek divinities, was the father of Dionysus, but tales about his mother differed. In one version of his story, his mother was a human princess, one of Zeus’s lovers, Semele of Thebes. At the urging of Zeus’s legitimate wife, the goddess Hera, Semele implored Zeus one day to reveal himself to her in all his glory as a deity; he reluctantly granted her wish and the dazzling energy of his true being vaporized poor Semele (what Hera had expected!). In the midst of her cremated remains survived the living embryo of Dionysus, which Zeus rescued and sewed into his own thigh. This provided for the miraculous development of his son, who was eventually born again out of Zeus and hence dubbed the “twice-born.”

Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship

In another version of his story, as preserved in the literature of the Orphic cult, Dionysus’ mother was the goddess Persephone, daughter of Zeus. The Orphic version focused on the murder of Dionysus (also known as Zagreus) by the Titans. Zeus had made it clear that, whenever he might be absent, Dionysus, though only a child, was to rule the universe in his place. Certain Titans refused to accept this and, instead, attacked Dionysus, ripped him apart limb from limb, and then ate the remains. On his return, Zeus punished the rebellious cannibals by vaporizing them with lightning bolts. Once again, as in the other version of Dionysus’ origin, in the midst of the Titan ashes a part of him, his heart, miraculously survived. From this organ, Zeus reincarnated his son (multiple scenarios for this were recounted), making him again the “twice-born.” Moreover, Zeus took up the soot of the Titans, which also contained the rest of what had been Dionysus, mixed it with water, and energized it to create human beings. So, according to one version of his origin, Dionysus shared humanity with us through his mother, while in the other version, humanity actually consisted of Dionysus in part. In either case, this made him a god intimately close to human beings. Furthermore, the fact that he was rescued from near death seems to have given him an affinity for the human experience of death and convinced the ancient Greeks that he could rescue them from its clutches. Indeed, the association between death and Dionysus was so great that the sixth-century BCE philosopher Heraclitus could claim Dionysus and Hades, the god of the Underworld, were the same entity. Dionysus traveled the known world teaching humanity how to cultivate the grapevine and produce wine from its fruit, something that, according to the Greeks, he had discovered. This meant that any time an ancient Greek engaged in licentious revelry or processions as a result of drinking too much wine, as men often did during their symposia (after-dinner drinking parties), he could claim to be engaging in Bacchic worship. Quite literally, he was allowing the god to enter his body and mind in the form of the wine; he was “enthusiastic,” or entheos, full of the god, inspired. This was a simple, rather short-lived communing with Dionysus. Another method was more intended to bring his powers to bear for the good of his human “siblings.” Groups of worshippers, typically women (bakchai) but sometimes also men (bakchoi), sought ekstasis, an ecstatic out-of-body experience, a sort of divine possession or vision trance. They imitated the mythical followers of Bacchus, female Maenads and male Satyrs, imbibing quantities of wine, “the gift of Dionysus” as the Greeks called it, and engaging in wild dancing to induce the ecstatic state. People came to fear what might go on between men and women in such a state of bakcheia (“becoming Bacchus”). By the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), local governments tried to regulate it by permitting only women (and most of them probably of the upper class) to participate and even that only every other year. In

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the wintertime, such bakchai went into the nearest patch of wilderness (referred to as going “into the mountains”), literally let down their hair, took off their shoes, changed their clothes for fawn skins, and made sacrifices of special cakes to the god. When night came, they drank wine and whirled around in torch-lit dances, shaking their heads, jumping, running, even falling to the ground. Accompanied by the tambourine (tympanon) and the shrill, high-pitched notes of the pipe (aulos), the bakchai let out shouts of euoi (an untranslatable exclamation perhaps connected to the Greek word for wine). Rumors still circulated widely about these secret rituals (myste¯ria), tales of these Bacchic “sisters” playing with snakes (which had chthonic or underworld associations) as if they were pets, tearing apart animals, or consuming raw flesh. Scholars debate whether any of this sort of thing actually happened; perhaps certain rituals were conducted to give the appearance of these “abnormal” behaviors. In any event, their trancelike state would have likely made the bakchai insensitive to normal feelings and unaware of unusual actions on their part. No wonder that the Athenians never permitted such Bacchic worship within Attica; Athenian bakchai did travel to Mt. Parnassus in Boeotia, however, where they joined the professional maenads from Thebes and the so-called Thyiads of Delphi in their ecstatic revels that ritually “woke up” Dionysus from death. A much more socially acceptable form of Bacchic worship consisted of public rituals and festivals in sacred spaces dedicated to the god. At the temples of Dionysus, individuals or the community as a whole made special offerings of billy goats, roosters, flowers, and eggs, each a symbol of fertility meant to represent hopes of rebirth or renewal at the hands of the god. Unlike other male deities, whose attendants were priests, servants of Dionysus at his temples were frequently priestesses, and a ritual of sacred marriage between the god and one of his priestesses (such as the wife of the Basileus archoˉn during the Anthesteria festival at Athens) typically took place each year. All this, again, connected to the myths of the Maenads and to the joining of male and female energies in Bacchic worship that was meant to promote fertility. Religious festivals in honor of Dionysus took place all across the ancient Greek territories. The city-state of Athens alone held seven Bacchic festivals annually, most famously the City Dionysia and the Lenaia, where the Athenians staged theatrical performances as an act of worship for “the god of many masks.” Preceded by a grand religious procession, these plays incorporated elements in line with the characteristics and interests of Dionysus as evidenced in his myths, especially the role reversals, gender exchanges, obscenity, sexually explicit language and costume, and so on, of comedic and satyr plays. Bacchic worship connected the ancient Greeks to the essentially paradoxical, often irrational aspects of life and death. Various religious and philosophical sects,

Religion and Beliefs: Chthonic Spirits

especially Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism, strongly incorporated Dionysiac elements into their belief systems and practices. As a result, while public worship of Dionysus experienced a decline in later periods of Greek history, especially under pressure from the Romans (who never much appreciated the “god without boundaries” nor his bizarre cult activities or tendency to upturn the order of society), private worship in the form of mysteries and philosophical reflection on the meaning of Bacchus remained vibrant through the end of ancient times. See also: Arts: Dance; Music; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Actors; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Wine; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Orphism; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1986. Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1997. Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carpenter, T. H., and C. A. Faraone, eds. 1993. Masks of Dionysos. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Csapo, E., and W. J. Slater. 1995. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Goff, B. 2004. Citizen Bacchae: Women’s Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kraemer, R. S. 1992. Her Share of the Blessings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nilsson, M. P. 1957. The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age. Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup. Otto, W. F. 1965. Dionysus: Myth and Cult. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pickard-Cambridge, A. 1988. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seaford, R. 2006. Dionysos. London and New York: Routledge. West, M. L. 1983. The Orphic Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHTHONIC SPIRITS The ancient Greeks identified certain spiritual forces as residing within the earth or as especially connected to the earth; since the Greek word for earth was chthoˉn, modern scholars refer to these entities as chthonic. Evidence clearly indicates that the Greeks always worshipped the Earth, Gaia or Ge¯, as an entity, the essential chthonic entity indeed, even before recorded

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history. She was much more than a typical goddess, as she was, in the first place, the mother of all the gods and goddesses. Together with her son/husband Ouranos (Heavens), she had given birth to the Titans; together with the Titans, she had plotted the overthrow of Ouranos. The Titans, in their turn, gave birth to the Olympians, and Gaia assisted the latter (especially Zeus) with her cunning and her prophetic powers in their “coup d’état” against the former, which eventually established the current order of the universe, as the Greeks understood it. In other words, the very cosmos itself depended ultimately on the existence and actions of Gaia. Furthermore, all living things came from Gaia and relied on her for their sustenance. Thus, she was the wide Earth, the bounteous Earth, and especially the rich and nurturing Earth, Gaia Melaina (Dark Earth). Although she was worshipped across the Greek territories, the site most associated with Gaia was Delphi, which Greeks regarded as the “navel” or “womb” of the Earth. Like Delphi, Gaia’s shrine in the Peloponnesian region of Arcadia, the Gaion, also had associations with her oracular powers. Closely associated with Gaia was the goddess Demeter, the fertility force of agriculture and the harvest, and, thus, by her very nature, quintessentially chthonic. She was conceived of as teaching the arts of agriculture to humanity, especially through the figure of Prince Triptolemus, and of bringing wealth to the world, personified in her son, the god Ploutos, and the seasons of the year, as a result of her desperate search for and discovery of her daughter, the goddess Persephone. Like that of Gaia, worship of Demeter was widespread among the ancient Greeks and focused on their desire for fertility, both reproductive and agricultural. This is revealed most clearly in the festivals known as Thesmophoria, celebrated all over the Greek world every fall, and Haloa, celebrated at Eleusis (near Athens) every winter. Adult women played the principal roles in these events, thereby reinforcing their connection to Demeter as beings of fertility themselves. Furthermore, since the Greeks regarded society built on agriculture as civilized society, they also came to invoke Demeter’s support and protection for their city-states on many occasions throughout the year. Finally, Demeter seemed to the Greeks to have the power to bring life from the lifeless seed, and this belief generated the mysterious rites practiced annually at Eleusis in the spring and fall. These Eleusinian Mysteries were fundamentally tied to the story of Demeter’s search for Persephone, goddess of the grain and of vegetation, more generally. The upshot of this myth was that joy and love for her daughter inspired the harvest mother to bring forth life from the earth. In the hot summer months, when the earth, in the Greek territories, seemed to go “dead,” Demeter had given up on her nurturing ways in tremendous grief over the absence of Persephone, often called simply Kore (Maiden), underground at that time with her husband, Hades.

Religion and Beliefs: Chthonic Spirits

Perhaps the most famous chthonic spirit, Hades, the “unseen one,” represented to the Greeks the terror and dark mystery beneath the earth. They euphemistically called him by another name, Plouton or Pluto, meaning “wealthy,” which might reflect his rule over so many souls, the spirits of all those who had passed away. Another aspect of Hades as Pluto, however, was how Greeks worshipped him, along with Persephone and Demeter, in the search for agricultural fecundity, “wealth of the land,” symbolized in the cornucopia. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, this seems to have been the case. During the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), Hades as Pluto gained widespread devotion, in Asia Minor even followers who believed that he could heal them in their sleep. Worship of Persephone alone still outshone that of her husband across the Greek world and most prominently in Sicily and southern Italy. Like her husband, the merciless king of the dead and the bringer of abundance, she also had two sides, the stern queen of the dead and the helper to her mother in prosperity and fertility. This made Persephone an ideal patron and protector for those seeking fecundity and for those seeking peaceful death or even renewal of life after death—hence, her central role in Orphic, Bacchic, and Eleusinian mystery rites. Associated with Hades and Persephone in their essential work of removing the dead from the world of the living and placing them under the ground was Hermes, the god who possessed the liminal power of crossing back and forth across the great divide of life and death. The Greeks worshipped him at least as far back as Mycenaean times (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) and in later times his chthonic function was encapsulated in the title, Hermes Psychopompos, “guide of souls.” Like Persephone, the torch-bearing goddess Hecate had her mystery cults, especially the one on the island of Aegina, where it was said she could cure madness. She appears to have been more important to the Greeks of Asia Minor and several of the Greek islands, and her worship grew in Hellenistic times. Generally, the Greeks conceived of Hecate as possessing great apotropaic powers (warding off danger from homes, sanctuaries, or cities), sometimes in association with other usually female deities, including Demeter. As one personification of the Moon, she was thought to safeguard people at night and she seems to have had some sort of connection to crossroads (where meals were offered to her). Among those goddesses often associated with Hecate was Artemis, twin sister of Apollo. She had her chthonic aspect as the goddess of wild nature, worshipped in locations outside the civilized centers of Greek life. Serious, tough, and rather frightening, again like Hecate, Artemis was nonetheless viewed by the Greeks as a protector, especially in the sense of keeping the wilderness of the earth appeased so that human civilization might survive. Even the greatest of the Olympians, Zeus, sky-god and ruler of the universe, had his chthonic aspects. Some communities worshipped him as Chthonios or

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Katachthonios (Under the Earth) or Meilichios (Kindly) and on the island of Crete, his mythical birthplace, eternally youthful Zeus Cretagenes (Born in Crete) shared with these other manifestations the sorts of rituals appropriate to chthonic spirits and appears to have functioned principally as a fertility god who could provide wealth to families and their relations. Veneration of this more earthly Zeus, probably a much more ancient male deity assimilated into Zeus’s multifaceted character, took place widely across the Greek territories, most famously in the Athenian spring festival known as Diasia. Most fearsome, perhaps, of all the chthonic spirits were the Erinyes, or Furies. Sometimes identified with a set of benevolent female spirits known as Eumenides (as at Athens), the Erinyes, the product of the blood of Ouranos spilled on the Earth, more often represented the awful powers of vengeance, especially the vengeance of kindred murdered by kindred. Chthonic deities often possessed this connection to vengefulness, as referenced by the Athenian playwright Aeschylus in his Suppliant Maidens; perhaps not surprisingly, he also provided ancient and modern audiences with the portrayal of the Furies that has left the deepest impression in their hounding of the hero Orestes in his Oresteia trilogy. Chthonic deities served as the focus of much communal worship in the Greek world, often prayed to for the sake of their apotropaic powers or for the purpose of purification of persons or places. Furthermore, Greeks swore oaths upon these spirits (their most serious oath of all was that to Earth/Gaia herself ) and invoked them to fulfill curses upon enemies (as did Orestes and Electra in calling upon “Nether Hermes” or as their mother Clytemnestra did in calling upon the Erinyes). Hundreds of extant curse tablets, buried in the ground by ancient Greeks and inscribed with their prayers to the chthonic world, palpably and graphically demonstrate the belief in such powers across the Greek territories. If such messages did not suffice, Greeks stamped on the ground to arouse the powers below earth, or beat their heads and chests to attract the wanted attention, and, of course, made sacrifices, often in pits below ground level, special sacrifices of black animals, without wine, often involving total destruction of the offering. In his Laws, Plato advised that the first priority of worship should go to the Olympian gods and the particular protective gods of one’s own community. Next, he placed the “chthonian gods.” In point of fact, however, the Greeks appear to have placed the Olympians always in second place to the chthonic spirits, who were the essential supporters of life itself; many sacred places among the Greeks began as fertility sites in honor of such entities. See also: Family and Gender: Women; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Bacchic Worship; Creation; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Magic; Myths and Heroes; Oracles; Orphism; Prophecy and Divination; Primary Documents: Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown)

Religion and Beliefs: Creation FURTHER READING Albinus, L. 2000. The House of Hades: Studies in Ancient Greek Eschatology. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Bremmer, J. N., and A. Erskine, eds. 2010. Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Brumfield, A. C. 1984. The Attic Festivals of Demeter and Their Relation to the Agricultural Year. New York: Ayer. Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Faraone, C. A., and D. Obbink, eds. 1991. Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foley, H. 1994. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gager, J. G. 1992. Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnston, S. I. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Larson, J. 2007. Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide. London and New York: Routledge. Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parker, R. 2005. Polytheism and Society at Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richardson, N. J. 1979. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CREATION The Greeks answered their questions about how the universe was formed, what governs its operation, and how humankind originated through mythmaking, in much the same way that the peoples of the Ancient Near East, as far back as the Sumerians, had done before them; clearly, much had been passed on from Mesopotamia to the Greeks through intermediary cultures, like the Hittites, in Mycenaean times (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE). Over the generations, ancient Greeks speculated on a number of creation scenarios and never developed one doctrinal creation story. Still, the poet Hesiod in the later eighth century BCE related perhaps the most coherent account of creation from a Greek perspective, encapsulating widespread Greek beliefs in his epic poem entitled Theogony. In the beginning, as Hesiod tells it, there was only Chaos, in Greek meaning either void, emptiness, or, perhaps more accurately, a lack of order and definition. In other words, before time began, nothing would have made any sense to human reason. Then, out of this Chaos inexplicably emerged Gaia, or Earth, as well as Tartarus (the Depths of the Earth), Erebus (the Darkness within the Earth), and Nyx (the Nighttime above the Earth). In addition, Eros came into existence at this

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point; moderns associate this force of attraction only with sexuality, but Greeks regarded it as having tremendous influence across the natural world, animate and inanimate. Next in the sequence of creation, Gaia generated Ourea (Mountains), Pontus (the Sea), and especially Ouranos (the Heavens). Here Hesiod, followed by later Greek authors, began to personify the elements of nature further, claiming that when Ouranos “lay atop” Gaia their “procreation” gave birth to many powers and features of the universe, such as Hyperion (Light), Okeanos (the Ocean), Tethys (the Fresh Waters), Rhea (Abundance), and Kronos (Time itself ). Father Heaven soon came to hate all these “children,” however, and so imprisoned them inside Mother Earth; she thus bloated (hence the term “Titan” for these children, from the Greek word for stretch) and in pain, plotted with the Titans, especially Kronos, to overthrow Father Heaven. The blood from the latter’s violent defeat and castration spilled on Mother Earth, generating fearsome creatures, like the Erinyes, or Furies, and the Gigantes, or Giants. Once Kronos assumed his father’s place as ruler of the universe, the Primordial Forces and the first generation of Titans engaged in “relationships” that produced more key features of the world, bringing more order to it, or cosmos, as the Greeks would have said; for example, Kronos and Rhea gave birth to the first generation of Olympian deities. Eventually, these, too, rose up against their elders, with Zeus, the youngest of the Olympians, leading the way against Kronos, and the Olympians came to dominate the entire cosmos. In the midst of all these supernatural conflicts for control of the ever-more sophisticated universe, the gods created human beings. The poet Hesiod suggested that Kronos had started this work by fashioning a race of men out of gold; these human beings never had to work a day in their lives and when they died, they simply fell asleep. A race of silver men was created to replace them, who lived lives of 100 years, ever youthful; once they passed that age, they lost their wits, becoming criminally maladjusted “adults,” as a result of which Zeus had to destroy them. Zeus made his first humans of bronze, but they destroyed themselves through incessant violence and warring. The next race of men did better, living long, adventurous lives. Hesiod identified this fourth human race with the famous Greek heroes who had fought at Troy and Thebes, leaving behind memories of great deeds for others to emulate; obviously, this was the first race of people made of flesh and blood. The poet claimed, though, that he and his contemporaries (and he would say us, too) really belonged to the fifth race “of iron,” who toil, lie, fight, and generally cause each other misery and trouble. Elsewhere in his poetry, Hesiod claimed a different origin for humans. Not Zeus, but rather the Titan Prometheus, always resistant to Zeus’s influence, had created humans in such a way as to assert his own autonomy against the Olympians. Prometheus protected mankind at every turn: when Zeus tried to force humans

Religion and Beliefs: Creation

into starvation by demanding sacrifice of all their cattle to the gods, Prometheus instructed people how to sacrifice only bones wrapped in pleasing-looking fat and keep the nourishing meat (wrapped in ugly stomach tissue) for themselves! When Zeus denied humans the use of fire, Prometheus stole a lump of charcoal from Olympus to restore fire to humankind. A set of Greek stories called the Orphic Theogonies spoke of Zeus as creating human beings from the soot of Titans he had vaporized in competition for control of the cosmos (hence the origin of our evil tendencies), also mixing in some of the soot from his son Dionysus, who had been slain by the Titans (hence, the origin of our mad or emotional qualities). In yet another version of the creation myth, found in the fables of Aesop and the philosophy of Plato, the Olympian gods fashioned mortal creatures out of earth and fire, commanding the Titan Epimetheus (brother of Prometheus) to equip them with all the skills needed for survival; some would be stronger, others swifter, some armed, others not, some would fly, others run, each eating foods particular to themselves, and so on, that is, all balanced against the extinction of life. Epimetheus, whose name means “afterthought,” failed to reserve survival features for the human beings, last in the reception line. Naked and naturally defenseless, without even a home to hide in, they would have been in serious danger of extinction if Prometheus had not hit upon the solution of stealing the sophisticated skills from the gods Hephaestus and Athena, as well as the secret of fire, and granting these to humankind. This made humans highly inventive and ingenious, capable of developing religion, inventing speech, building houses, fashioning clothes, farming the land, and so on. Still, the first humans lived scattered and more defenseless against the wilderness than other creatures, so Zeus decided to give them each some political and military wisdom that they might survive and flourish in community. Greek culture thus did not restrict the explanations for creation, whether of the universe or of human beings. Instead, the imagination of the ancient Greeks multiplied those explanations, especially when it came to the origin of humanity. Their many creation stories sought deep understanding and recognized the multifaceted realities among ourselves and all that surrounds us in the natural world. See also: Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Orphism; Science and Technology: Cosmology; Primary Documents: Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown) FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson.

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The World of Ancient Greece Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

DEIFICATION In the world of the ancient Greeks, the cult of heroes, in which famous men and women of the far past received veneration as if they were “godlike,” naturally opened the way to the outright deification of human beings within living memory or, indeed, those still living. Deification, referred to as apotheoˉsis, among other things, thus elevated the human into the divine realm. The cultures of the Ancient Near East had long recognized their rulers as having special connections to the divine. In Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria, the people regarded their kings as “lowered down from heaven,” as human beings chosen by the patron divinities of the community to stand in their place among mortals; such priest-kings could commune directly with the gods. Some of these leaders, like the Sumerian king Gilgamesh, were even immortalized in myth as being both human and divine. The tradition of divinely connected and divinely inspired monarchs spread outside of Mesopotamia, as in the case of the Persian King of Kings, the chosen one of Ahura Mazda (god of creation, life, truth, and justice). The Egyptians took such notions even further, claiming that their kings and queens were, in fact, gods walking among them in human form. Meanwhile, the ancient Greeks, though they may have seen their monarchs as blessed by the gods—as they tended to see all those who were rich and powerful— certainly did not regard them as divine in any way. Such status was reserved for the heroes of old, the heroes of legend, most of which were demigods (like Heracles) or descended from demigods (like Oedipus). In the aftermath of the Persian Wars and especially during the Peloponnesian War, the Greek mindset toward the divinity of human beings within living memory began to change. The Spartan king Leonidas I, famous for his stand against the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BCE, received his own celebratory games annually at Sparta, as if he were a demigod; his nephew Pausanias, leader of the Greeks against the Persians in the years that followed, was also honored with a hero cult, as was the daring Spartan general Brasidas during the first phase of the Peloponnesian War. In all such cases, the new demigods were men of conspicuous achievement who had already died by the time honors were granted to them. In the late fifth century BCE, however, at the close of the Peloponnesian War, the people of Samos awarded honors “as a god” to the Spartan admiral Lysander while he was still

Religion and Beliefs: Deification

living; this was certainly not something to which he objected, since he fostered an image of himself as heroic, as more than human in his accomplishments. In contrast, the Spartan king Agesilaus later refused to be worshipped as a divinity by the people of Thasos. Despite his rejection of the honor, the fact that it was proposed at all seems to confirm that a trend toward deification of living individuals had begun within the Greek world. King Philip II of Macedon evidently encouraged this trend. At his capital Aegae, an image of him was carried in sacred procession along with the images of the twelve Olympian gods; on the island of Lesbos, a statue of Philip was placed within the sanctuary of Zeus. Philip’s son, Alexander the Great, then took the notion of being a living divinity further by constantly associating himself with the heroes of myth, such as Achilles and Heracles, allowing himself to be proclaimed Pharaoh in Egypt (which linked him to the long-standing tradition there of god-kings), and especially by visiting the oracle at Siwa in Egypt in 331 BCE, where the priests declared him son of Amun (their principal sun god). Alexander clearly appears to have sought recognition of his divinity during his campaigns in the Persian Empire, if for no other reason than to secure the allegiance of his nonGreek subjects who were accustomed to regard their rulers as divine, semidivine, or chosen by the divine. Furthermore, since he considered his achievements greater than those of any Greek hero from the past, Alexander could see no reason why he should not be celebrated and honored more than they were, as more than a mere mortal. After his death, “godlike” Alexander received posthumous cult as a deity across his vast empire, including Greece. His successors, particularly those generals who solidified their control over the Ancient Near East, received the same sort of deification or ruler cult from their descendants. For instance, Antiochus I, ruler of the Seleucid Empire (which stretched from Anatolia and Syria-Palestine eastward to the borders of India), posthumously declared his father, Seleucus I, Zeus Nikator (Zeus the Victor); Ptolemy II Philadelphus, ruler of the Kingdom of Egypt, posthumously declared his father, Ptolemy I, Soter, or “Savior.” The Ptolemies found it much easier than their Seleucid rivals to maintain a strong ruler cult, since the Egyptians were already long accustomed to regarding their kings as living gods and as passing this divinity down through hereditary succession; to encourage belief in the deification of a ruler while alive took more deliberate effort on the part of the Seleucids (as in the case of Antiochus III Megas) and never quite worked as well as it did in Egypt. Meanwhile, in Greece itself, the Antigonid Dynasty found that it could not easily maintain belief in the divinity of its members in the face of continued political rivalries, a spirit of independence, and skepticism. Some communities did bestow divine honors on several of the Antigonids, as when the Athenians declared

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Demetrius I and his father Antigonus I as “savior gods” in the late fourth century BCE. On the other hand, Antigonus himself famously joked in disbelief about becoming a god. Despite such sarcasm, support for deification grew more than it abated in the centuries after Alexander the Great’s demise. It received impetus from philosophers, like Anaxarchus of Abdera, who remarked that ichoˉr (the bodily fluid of the gods) had flowed from the wounds of Alexander instead of human blood, and from authors, like Euhemerus of Messene, who told of how the anthropomorphic gods worshipped by the Greeks were all once earthly kings deified by later generations in honor of their great achievements for humanity. Thus, deification brought about the sharing of sacred spaces with leading humans and the assimilation of those human beings with divine qualities; it fostered the creation of shrines and temples and the celebration of rituals, festivals, and contests (isotheoi timai) in honor of those individuals while alive and after their deaths. If not initiated by rulers or their families, deification was declared by communities, thus creating a link between them and the deified, usually in thanksgiving for favors rendered by the latter to the former. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Monarchies; Peloponnesian War (431– 404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Oracles; Priests and Priestesses; Prophecy and Divination; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines; and Sacred Groves; Primary Documents: Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE) FURTHER READING Antonaccio, C. M. 1995. An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bosworth, A. B. 1988. Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Farnell, L. R. 1921. Greek Hero Cult and Ideas of Immortality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kearns, E. 1989. The Heroes of Attica. London: University of London. Larson, J. 1995. Greek Heroine Cults. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Small, A., ed. 1996. Subject and Ruler: The Cult of the Ruling Power in Classical Antiquity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries

DIVINATION. See PROPHECY AND DIVINATION ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES Each year in the fall, Athenians and, indeed, worshippers from across the Greek world took part in a pilgrimage from the city of Athens northwest to the little village of Eleusis, to the sanctuary of the “Two Goddesses,” Demeter and Persephone. There, they engaged in rites cloaked in secrecy for generations, a secrecy the ancient evidence suggests was never broken by any of the participants. These Eleusinian Mysteries (from the Greek word myste¯ria, meaning “secret things”) apparently promised much to these devotees, including a happy life in the hereafter. In order to prepare for the Greater Mysteries to be held at Eleusis, pilgrims participated in the Lesser Mysteries (held during the month Athenians called Anthesterion, mid-February to mid-March in the modern calendar). Led by one of the top Athenian officials, the Basileus archoˉn, who had primary responsibility for religious matters pertaining to the community, they would process just outside the city limits to the south; there, at the Ilissus River, they would cleanse themselves in a ritual act of purification and sacrifice a piglet to the Two Goddesses. At this stage, the Basileus archoˉn recognized the pilgrims as mystai (sing. myste¯s), which one might render into English as “learners of the secrets.” Fifty-five days in advance of the Greater Mysteries, heralds from Athens announced their official starting date; they did this not only in the city itself, but far and wide across the Greek world, so that male and female mystai from many states would have time to make their journey to Athens and know when to arrive there. In addition to the hopeful, first-time initiates, those who had already gone through initiation but now sought an even deeper religious experience, the epoptai (sing. epopte¯s, “overlooker”) also would have begun their travel plans, as would the theoˉroi (sing. theoˉros, “official observer”) sent by many states. Six months after the Lesser Mysteries, during the month Athenians called Boedromion (mid-September to mid-October), the Greater Mysteries took place. Members from two of the most aristocratic Athenian clans, the Eumolpidai and the Kerykes, had the hereditary privilege of presiding over the ten days of events; they served as hierophantai (sing. hierophante¯s), special priests who would “reveal the holy things.” They began the ceremonies with a procession of sacred objects (the exact character of which remains unknown to us due to the secrecy of the ceremonies) carried in round boxes, or cistai, on the heads of priestesses; young Athenian military cadets, known as ephebes (ephe¯boi in Greek), escorted the priestesses from the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis (the Telesterion, meaning

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“place of initiation or perfecting”) to their sanctuary at Athens (the Eleusinion, located along the northern base of the Acropolis). On the following day, the pilgrims, official observers, and other spectators, gathered in the agora, or marketplace, of Athens (northwest of the Eleusinion) at the Stoa Poikile, where they received instructions from the hierophants. They were told to march down to the sea on the next day, to the old harbor at Phaleron, where the mystai and epoptai should engage in another purificatory rite (like that of the Lesser Mysteries), this time cleansing in seawater themselves and the piglets they would offer to the Two Goddesses. On the fourth day of the Greater Mysteries, the Basileus Votive relief from Eleusis in Attica depicting archoˉn made a sacrifice to DemeDemeter, Triptolemus, and Persephone, c. 430–420 ter and Persephone at the EleusinBCE. According to Athenian legend, Demeter ion. The other participants then and Persephone, the goddesses of the harvest and the seasons, taught the young Eleusinian prince rested until the sixth day, when Triptolemus how to grow grain and sent him forth the great procession from Athens to share such knowledge and skill with the world. to Eleusis took place. Pilgrims, (Allan T. Kohl/Art Images for College Teaching) hierophants, priestesses carrying cistai (containing the secret, sacred items), foreign and domestic officials, foreign and domestic spectators, all left the city together by way of the Dipylon Gate (which straddled the great public cemeteries of Athens), led by a carriage on which rode the statue of Iacchos, a manifestation of the fertility god Dionysus. Without any food or water, they trekked on foot about fifteen miles along the Sacred Way to the Telesterion in a ritual reenactment of one of the most important events in the mythology of the goddesses. Demeter herself, it was believed, had once gone on a long journey in search of her daughter Persephone, who had been kidnapped and taken to the underworld by the god Hades; in the meantime, the goddess had neglected her duties, doing nothing to bring life to the barren earth. According to

Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries

tradition, she had spent long months in mourning inside the Telesterion, a dark, windowless building that had been erected by the royal family of Eleusis especially for the goddess. So, the pilgrimage to Eleusis took place in imitation of Demeter’s significant journey, but the participants “compensated” for the sadness of the goddess with much merriment and even raucousness (e.g., men with their heads covered hurled abuses at the pilgrims to embarrass them and make them laugh); this also anticipated the joy felt by Demeter on her reunion with her lost child, according to tradition, at Eleusis. When the procession arrived at Eleusis by torchlight, the participants spent the night singing and dancing, again sharing in the great happiness of the Two Goddesses. Like Demeter, they broke their fast by drinking a mixture (kykeoˉn) of water, barley, and gle¯choˉn (perhaps a member of the mint family with hallucinogenic properties). Over the next three days, mystai and epoptai entered into complete secrecy. Greek laity did not usually have permission to enter temples, but inside the sealed Telesterion, the hierophants initiated the mystai and “upgraded” the epoptai. Modern scholars suspect that the devotees conducted sacrifices and libations, ate communal meals, witnessed sacred dramas drawn from the stories of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades, and experienced spiritual revelations; the “secret things” “shown” and “taught” to the participants by the hierophantai seem to have been especially significant, and connected with the notion that the devotees of the Two Goddesses would now have “better hopes after death,” as the ancient sources described it. After all, through her supernatural powers, Demeter had brought the earth back to life again when she was reunited with her daughter; could she not perhaps do the same for those who had devoted themselves to her? After all this mystery, the devotees of the Two Goddesses emerged from the Telesterion; the priests then purified the observers and spectators who had been waiting patiently outside and even allowed them inside the sanctuary, something very uncommon in Greek religion. Then, everyone celebrated a grand feast, accompanied by dancing and singing throughout the night. The next morning, everyone returned to Athens. As already noted, initiates into the mysteries of Eleusis were expected to keep the ceremonies and knowledge they received a complete secret. In the late fifth century BCE, a radical poet by the name of Diagoras of Melos got into serious trouble with the Athenian state for ridiculing the mysteries and, apparently, had to escape from Athens to avoid execution. Around the very same time, in one of the most sensational scandals of Greek history, one of Athens’ most prominent citizens (indeed, a commander of one of its most important military expeditions) was charged with profaning the Great Mysteries. This was Alcibiades the Alcmaeonid, nephew of Pericles and friend of Socrates. He had pushed the Athenians to send an

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armada against perceived enemies on the island of Sicily; on arrival of the Athenian fleet there, a messenger from Athens reached them, ordering Alcibiades to leave his post in the expedition and return home to stand trial. Evidence had been brought to the government that he had staged a mock version of the mysteries in his own home, thus not only revealing the sacred rites to the uninitiated but also ridiculing them. Since Alcibiades escaped custody and did not return to Athens as commanded (instead fleeing to enemy Sparta for refuge), his fellow citizens condemned him for sacrilege in absentia. From at least the early sixth century BCE to almost the end of the fourth century CE, men, women, and children, free or slave, as long as they could speak Greek and had not committed bloodshed, could enter into the mysteries of the Two Goddesses at Eleusis. What happened there captured the imagination of thousands of individuals over generations of time, certainly because it fulfilled a true and deep personal need for connectedness to the natural cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The ceremonies at Eleusis were the first in history to be called myste¯ria, a term that would later be applied to so many mystical experiences, both in the ancient world and in later times, right up to the present day. See also: Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Libations and Offerings; Magic; Orphism; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Albinus, L. 2000. The House of Hades: Studies in Ancient Greek Eschatology. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Bowden, H. 2010. Mystery Cults of the Ancient World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brumfield, A. C. 1984. The Attic Festivals of Demeter and Their Relation to the Agricultural Year. New York: Ayer. Burkert, W. 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clinton, K. 1992. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Stockholm: Swedish Institute at Athens. Clinton, K. 2005. Eleusis—The Inscriptions on Stone: Documents of the Sanctuary of the Two Goddesses and Public Documents of the Deme. Athens: Archaeological Society at Athens. Cosmopoulos, M., ed. 2003. Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults. London: Taylor & Francis. Faraone, C. A., and D. Obbink, eds. 1991. Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foley, H. 1994. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Johnston, S. I. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kerenyi, C. 1991. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings Larson, J. 2007. Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide. London and New York: Routledge. Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Mylonas, G. 1961. Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richardson, N. J. 1979. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

HEROES. See MYTHS AND HEROES LIBATIONS AND OFFERINGS The ancient Greeks believed that one must show some token of good faith when asking for anything from the gods or when thanking them for benefits received. This meant engaging in ritual acts that acknowledged the divine presence and recognized its role in one’s life and its outcomes. Giving up something of value to the gods in this fashion would especially give them a reason to grant one’s request or regard one as a grateful friend of the gods. So, the Greeks gave many “gifts” to the divine realm, what they would call bloodless sacrifices, in the form of libations (usually of wine mixed with a proper proportion of water, but in some cases oil, milk, unmixed wine, or honey) and offerings (of valuable objects or small items of food). Just outside their homes, Greeks poured libations of wine and of olive oil to the gods Hermes and Apollo; they made offerings of eggs, cheese, bread, and cakes to the goddess Hecate. These deities protected the family from thieves, dangers in the night, and when making journeys, and warded off illness. Inside the courtyard of their homes, they set up statues of the gods and small altars to them, like those honoring Zeus Ktesios (Protector of Property) or Zeus Pasios (Protector of All). Here they offered little containers (  panspermia) filled with water, fruits, and olive oil. Inside the home, they set up a small table near the hearth fire on which they offered salt and drink to the goddess Hestia, the most crucial divine protector of the family. Greek men and women poured libations and burned incense in the morning to greet the day (as many believed it was a deity itself ) and in the evening to thank the day. Indeed, beginnings and endings in general were regarded as appropriate times to make some sort of token offering to the divine realm; hence, the pouring of libations whenever oaths were made or contracts agreed to, or whenever starting on travels, or commencing a prayer to the divine, or simply calling on the gods to listen to one’s words.

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Similarly, on wedding days, the two families made offerings especially to Hera, Artemis, and Zeus, the gods who protected marriage and mothers. To gain divine favor, the night before her wedding, a Greek bride gave a lock of her hair and her childhood possessions to Artemis. Greeks typically made vows promising future offerings to the gods once divine benefits were received, but the Greek bride pledged a vow in reverse; she made her offering first, consigning to Artemis tokens of her childhood identity, in exchange for divine assistance that had not yet come in terms of becoming an adult wife and mother. Again, most deities were expected to perform blessings before taking possession of votive offerings; the latter were deposited in considerable quantities at temples or other sacred sites and ranged from costly objects, like golden cauldrons and bronze armor to relatively inexpensive ones, like little images of the devout or children’s playthings. When it came to libations (sponde¯, pl. spondai), the ancient Greeks typically gave only a small amount, but to commemorate their dearly departed, they poured out an entire container full (choe) or more than one (choai). Thus, they literally “poured blessings”: a libation of wine or oil over an inhumation burial or a libation of wine to extinguish the funeral pyre of a cremation (the ashes of which, too, were sprinkled with wine and oil when interred). During the year and especially on the anniversary of the deceased’s passing, Greeks visited the graves of their loved ones. They considered a combined libation of wine, milk, and honey as appropriate on such occasions, as well as an oblation of food, like special cakes in particular shapes. Adorning the grave with flowers, ivy, and other vegetation, garlands, or ribbons also served as a form of offering to the deceased. Whatever was offered to the departed was intended for their full use, none of it to be kept aside for the mourners. In a similar vein, the deities and heroes of the underworld, who watched over the dead and the living, received similar gifts in their entirety. Greeks often placed on the altar of a god the first fruits of the harvest, or a loaf of harvest bread, or a portion of the new produce boiled in a pot, to recognize that god’s role in securing the harvest, to express gratitude for how well things worked out, and to request more of the same good fortune and fertility. They typically called such offerings thalusia or thargela, as in the Athenian festival of the same name, where first fruits of the harvest were cooked in a pot and carried around to distribute to the various gods; a harvest loaf might be called the eueteria, or “goodseason loaf.” There were many such festivals of first harvest (and of abundance later in the agricultural season) around the Greek world. Barley, the ancient Greeks’ most important grain, was regularly offered as first fruits to the gods by casting it into a sacred fire, sprinkling it on a sacrificial altar, or

Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings

rubbing it on a sacrificial animal. The devout also concocted “appetizers” prepared with barley as first fruits. First fruits were offered in a more figurative sense when cutting off some of a sacrificial victim’s hair and burning it on the altar or when dedicating a portion of loot gained in battle (like a helmet or a shield) to the god given credit for the victory. Incense might also be a “first fruit” in this way. Greeks thus engaged in the giving of first fruits to the gods as a stand-alone ceremony and as one part of a larger sacrificial ritual. Moreover, libations played a key role in all sacrifices, especially at their conclusion when the altar fire was quenched, most commonly by an outpouring of wine, more rarely by the very blood of the sacrificial victim. Meals figured most prominently and most frequently in the cult of offerings to the divine powers; Greeks felt the absolute need of showing their appreciation for the food before them, the results of their cooperation with the gods. Every time a Greek sat down to a meal, he or she made a libation to the gods, which not only thanked them for the sustenance about to be consumed but also included them in the meal itself, as if being welcomed as guests. It was particularly important to do this, and to provide food for the gods as well, at ceremonial meals, such as wedding feasts or celebrations when infants received their names. In such instances, one wanted to ensure the gods’ goodwill toward the young couple or the child and to avert any divine jealousy or potential wrath. Along the same lines, after meals, Greeks offered a few drops of unmixed wine as a libation to the vague spirits agathos daimon (good deity) and agathe¯ tyche¯(good luck) to gain their support for the success and fertility of the family. When the men of the house invited guests over for a banquet and drinking party (symposion), they always started the latter by pouring three libations of mixed wine in a row. The first and third libations were intended for Zeus Meilichios (The Propitious), who would thus not only oversee the festivities but also guarantee good things for the participants. For all the sophistication of their architecture, philosophy, science, and so on, the Greeks practiced a very simple and ritualistic piety in making offerings to their gods. All that one needed was the food or drink, the jug and the bowl (the instruments of libation and offering), and clean hands. Across the Greek world, the most common offering of any sort, even more than animal sacrifice, was the libation of wine, a gift of their everyday beverage. Through fervent and frequent prayer, they called upon the supernatural beings to attend these libations, and other bloodless offerings. The Greeks sought in this way to maintain regular contact with the divine realm and to thank them for any sort of success they achieved, as well as to avert any sort of danger that might be looming on the horizon. No wonder, then, that the jug and the bowl became so ubiquitous in Greek households and in Greek art of all periods.

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See also: Arts: Mosaics; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Lyric; Family and Gender: Burial; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Marriage; Men; Weddings; Women; Food and Drink: Hospitality; Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings; Housing Architecture; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Symposia; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Myths and Heroes; Priests and Priestesses; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Adcock, F., and D. J. Mosley. 1975. Diplomacy in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Burkert, W. 1983. Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth. Translated by P. Bing. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Translated by J. Raffan. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Dowden, K. 1989. Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology. London and New York: Routledge. Faraone, C. A. 1992. Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Häag, R., ed. 1994. Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence. Stockholm: Svenska institutet i Athen. Low, P. 2007. Interstate Relations in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nilsson, M. P. 1940. Greek Folk Religion. New York: Columbia University Press. Ogden, D., ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patton, K. C. 2009. Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pulleyn, S. 1997. Prayer in Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

MAGIC Throughout all time periods of ancient Greek history, people across all social classes believed in magic (mageia, theourgia), the harnessing, control, and manipulation of supernatural powers by human beings in an effort to affect the world they lived in, either for the benefit of their own interests or against the interests of others. Although the common name for such practices, from which the English word magic derives, seems to have been imported into Greek society from the Ancient Near East, specifically from Persian religion, the Greeks engaged in magic long before their contact with that culture and utilized a variety of terms to describe magical practice and practitioners with no links to the Ancient Near East.

Religion and Beliefs: Magic

Like all known forms of magic, the ancient Greek variety employed particular rituals, objects, and words. Everyday Greeks as well as professional Greek sorcerers (goe¯tes, strigloi, magoi) or sorceresses (striglai, sophides) mastered certain formulaic phrases or words (epoˉidai, goe¯teumata) assumed to have magical potency, or particular sounds, cries, and noises (like hissing or whistling), even unrecognizable, meaningless language (referred to as Ephesia grammata, or “Ephesian letters”). Sometimes the words or other utterances had some connection to legends, myths, or religious rituals. Many involved some sort of rhythm, or some pattern of repetition or rhyming. Knowing what to say and how to say it mattered a great deal in ancient Greek magic, but so did knowing when and where to say it, how to move or gesture during one’s magical incantations, and what items to use along with them. For instance, it was believed that the timing and the location of magical rituals were crucial to their efficacy; preference went to early mornings or at midnight, during astrological confluences, at cemeteries or crossroads. It was also believed that some utterances needed to be written down instead of, or as well as, spoken, and perhaps in foreign letters, especially inscribed from right to left. It might be necessary to employ magic wands (rhabdoi), objects of iron, certain stones or wood, animal parts, human nails, hair, or blood (especially of criminals or the shipwrecked dead), dolls, drawings, or potions of herbs or plants to complete the spell. The Hellenistic poet Theocritus captures all these elements in his second Idyll, a tale about a young girl, Simaetha of Cos, who invokes the aid of the goddess Hecate (associated with many powers, including those of sorcery) against Delphis, a young athlete whom she loves but who has apparently abandoned her. Deep in the night, with the Moon shining upon her, at a crossroads surrounded by roadside tombs, Simaetha casts her spell to bring Delphis back to her or prevent him from being with anyone else by consigning him to pain and fire. Upon an altar to Hecate, she burns offerings of bran, barley, laurel leaves, what moderns would term a voodoo doll (dagudos) made of wax in the likeness of Delphis, and later a piece of his clothing. Ancient Greeks believed that illnesses, accidents, injuries, and even crimes, like assault or robbery, might have been caused by harmful or black magic (kakotechnia) and especially by the mysterious force known as the evil eye (a supernatural exaggeration or projection of the envy and hatred felt by others against oneself ). To protect themselves against such troubles, or to recover from them, they often wore amulets (  periammai, periapta, phylacteria) hung about the neck, placed on the arms or fingers, or even attached to clothing. Amulets were made of gemstones, precious metals, or even the body parts of animals or people, sometimes specially shaped to resemble magical images, like nails, knots, scarabs, eyes, gesturing hands, or sex organs, and often engraved with magical symbols, names, or

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exotic words (favorites were the Hebrew names, Abraxas and Solomon!). Phalli in stone or metal were especially popular, said to be able to guard any wearer against envy, and to protect babies and charioteers from danger. In addition to protection and healing, magic amulets were said to bring gain, love, power, and success, not only to the wearer but also to his or her family and community. Related to the use of amulets was, again, the employment of magic words to ward off dangers. So, a person might place a plaque outside the door of his or her home, for instance, upon which certain words were inscribed. One popular example known was, “Sickness, be gone! Heracles lives here!” By invoking in this way the name of the great hero of Greek myth, and by claiming his presence in one’s own home, it was thought illness, itself caused by other supernatural beings, would not dare to enter. Amulets and other magical objects played a role in sympathetic magic. As noted in the story of Simaetha, Greeks used dolls of cloth or wax formed into a shape to resemble some person they intended to curse and then either pierced or melted them after or during the recitation of an incantation. Related to this practice was the “contagious” magic involving an accursed person’s body parts (such as hair or nails) or possessions. The goal was that the curse invoked upon those items would spread sympathetically to the whole of the targeted person. The ancient Greeks also believed that they could invoke dark magic against others through curses (arai, eparai, katarai). A curse could be invoked through verbal incantation, as we see in surviving curse poetry or in the curses attending oath-taking to make sure both parties truly feared the breaking of their oath. People very often inscribed curse warnings on their tombs or sacred places, damning people in advance for potential transgressions against these inviolable locales. Private individuals also inscribed destructive wishes on lead sheets and deposited them in the ground, in wells or caverns, or buried in cemeteries or in sacred places, in order to “send” them as messages to the supernatural forces of the underworld. Such curse tablets (katadesmoi, katadeseis) as have been uncovered archaeologically (some even with famous names on them) typically invoke those underworld forces into nefarious action to harm or destroy another individual or group of individuals alleged to have done something terrible to the dedicator; they reveal the envy, rivalry, and hatred between the parties involved, whether mutual or one-sided, whether in matters of love, sports, lawsuits, or what have you. They are also sometimes pierced with nails to literally drive home the point of the message inscribed. Curses, whether spoken or written, usually called upon the god Hermes (who traversed between the worlds of the living and the dead) or the goddesses Demeter, Persephone, and Gaia (who were associated with life and death), Hecate, or the Erinyes/Furies (the supernatural spirits of vengeance who acted to protect mothers and fathers harmed by their children in life). Sometimes the souls of deceased

Religion and Beliefs: Magic

human beings, who were regarded either as benevolent protectors or malevolent destroyers, were invoked through curses. In Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), curse tablets often contained pleas to the gods for justice, naming the victim, the alleged perpetrator, the alleged injury or insult committed, just like a charge brought against someone in court. The ancient Greeks not only believed that people could master certain utterances or utilize certain objects to get what they wanted from the supernatural universe but also that particular people, either through inborn gift or through training, could commune with the forces of nature and channel them. Such theourgoi studied the writings known as the Chaldaean Oracles (supposedly spoken by Hecate and other gods to certain human intermediaries as instruction on the universe) and the over forty books allegedly composed by Hermes Trismegistus (Thrice-Great), the manifestation of Hermes (as merged with the Egyptian god Thoth) most worshipped in Hellenistic times. Theurgists allegedly had the magic power to make statues move, to levitate themselves or other objects, to cause rain to fall, and so on. Some Neoplatonists, particularly Iamblichus (c. 240–c. 325 CE) and his followers, strongly favored such theurgy. The ancient Greeks certainly also believed in magical creatures, differentiated from the gods and other spirits of their religion. For instance, a common claim was that they learned much of their skill in metallurgy from the Telchines, primordial gnomes, wizards of magical arts, who lived in “fairy-tale” times on the islands of Rhodes, Cyprus, Crete, and elsewhere. They were capable of invoking the evil eye, and could destroy crops with sulfur and water. The Hellenistic scholar-poet Callimachus was fond of referring to his critics as Telchines! The Telchines resembled another fairy-tale magic race, the dwarves known as the Idaean Dactyls (Fingers of the Idaean Mother Goddess). Spoken of either as five males or as five males and five females, the Idaean Dactyls had also been great metallurgists in former times, experts working in iron. Recall that the Greeks believed iron to be a magical metal in some respects. As far back as the eighth century BCE, the poet Hesiod warned against superstitious magic. Some Greeks of Late Classical and Hellenistic times (that is, from the fourth century BCE onward) suspected and sharply criticized magic and the widespread belief in magic. Hippocratic texts, for example, castigated charlatan magicians (many of whom also posed as healers) who claimed to be able to call down the Moon, eclipse the Sun, or bring rain, drought, or sterility to land and people. The philosopher Plato attacked what he saw as the ridiculous use of wax dolls and curse tablets. Many other Greeks disliked the secretiveness and potential dangers presented by the magic arts. Yet Greek myth was replete with revered magicians, like Orpheus, Melampus, and Musaeus, as well as fascinating witches, like Circe and Medea. In the fifth

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century BCE, the comic playwright Aristophanes may have made fun of the Thessalian witches, who could close off the Moon or bring down the Moon, but he still had one of his lead characters, Strepsiades, express his desire to bring one to Athens to help him in his woes, a testimony to the continuing renown in which those sorceresses were held by the general public. As late as the second century CE, the Greek author Apuleius wrote a lot about magic, whether in his self-defense against charges of misusing magic (Apologia/De Magia) or in his story of a young boy who errs in the use of magical arts (Metamorphoses/Golden Ass). Moreover, there was considerable overlap between magic and the publicly sanctioned religious practices of Greek society. Despite any criticisms or ambivalence, then, magic remained a strong feature of Greek society and of the Greek mindset. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Family and Gender: Friendship and Love; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Health and Illness; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Chthonic Spirits; Libations and Offerings; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Ankarloo, B., and S. Clark, eds. 1999. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dickie, M. W. 2001. Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World. London and New York: Routledge. Dodds, E. R. 1951. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Faraone, C. A. 1992. Talismans and Trojan Horses. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Faraone, C. A., and D. Obbink. 1991. Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gager, J.  G. 1992. Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnston, S.  I. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1979. Magic, Reason, and Experience. London: Duckworth. Luck, G. 1985. Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Watson, L. 1991. Arae: The Curse Poetry of Antiquity. Leeds: F. Cairns.

MYTHS AND HEROES The term “myth” comes from the ancient Greek word mythos, which simply means spoken words. In ancient Greek society, the term came to apply to traditional tales

Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes

that conveyed strong cultural messages and/or that contextualized the establishment of religious practices, family lineages, or whole communities. In its earliest form, myth among the Greeks was constructed and performed orally by wandering poets, usually referred to as rhapsodoi, and passed down by word of mouth through the generations. The famous Homer appears to have been one of the last of these rhapsodes. So, the tradition of mythmaking stretched far back into the past before his time; indeed, Homer alludes to established stories, not of his creation, that he clearly assumes will be well-known to his audience. Indeed, the Greeks borrowed significant elements from the much older mythologies of their neighbors in the Ancient Near East. They incorporated these details into their own stories about how the universe came to be (cosmogonies) and the role played in it by families of gods (theogonies). Such myths, like Hesiod’s Theogony, emphasized the divinity of the natural world itself while at the same time demonstrating its essentially human characteristics (both good and bad) as manifested in the behavior of the willful, emotional gods. Zeus bulked large in Greek cosmological tales, as his counterpart Marduk did in the much older Babylonian ones, for bringing some sort of order to the universe; the Greeks also explained the existence of many supernatural beings as the offspring of Zeus, who possessed an apparently insatiable sexual appetite. Myths about universal/divine origins attempted to explain what lay beyond the scope of human reason, in a sense to grab hold of the unknown and make it known in story form. They also situated gods and humans in relation to one another. Cosmological myths thus played a key role in the oldest ritual practices, as exemplified in the so-called Homeric Hymns. Whether sung to Gaia, Demeter, Apollo, or Hermes, these prayers, when performed at their sacred places and during their festivals, not only honored the gods addressed but also reminded the participants of where those gods had come from, what they had done for humankind, and why they mattered. Among the old-established tales referenced by Homer are the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts, the battles for control of Thebes, the struggles of Orestes, and the labors of Heracles. All these involve heroes (another word taken directly from ancient Greek), larger-than-life human beings said to belong to their own “race,” who lived in a time of their own not like the era of living men. Most heroes had at least partial divine ancestry (like Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus and Leda), while some did not have any human ancestry at all, despite their humanoid appearance (like Erechtheus/Ericthonios, warrior-hero of Athens, “spawned” by Hephaestus and the earth). Most Greek heroes seem to have emerged as locally influential figures, regarded after death as founders of communities, beginners of religious practices, benefactors in spirit form, and so on. Their stories told of how they proved themselves

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against difficult odds, representative perhaps of the community’s very own strength. Theseus of Athens provides a good example. On his way to Athens from his birthplace in Troezen, the young hero experienced many adventures, battling bandits and terrible creatures, foiling the poison plot of his stepmother Medea, overcoming the bull of Marathon, and, most famously, destroying the Minotaur. As king of Athens, he brought the population of Attica together as one state and defended the territory against invaders (even his spirit did so against the Persian forces at Marathon, it was said!). Of course, he also looked for action in the Greek tradition, joining Heracles in his labor against the Amazons Terracotta jar, or amphora, from Attica illustrating and Pirithous in his war against the capture of the menacing Cretan Bull by the hero Heracles, c. 520–510 BCE. The cowardly king the Centaurs, and abducting Eurystheus directed Heracles to perform a series of young Helen of Sparta (until her challenging, indeed death-defying, tasks (“Labors”) in brothers Castor and Polydeuces penance for the hero’s accidental murder of his wife Megara and their children in a fit of madness. (The invaded Attica to rescue her). Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1941) Theseus never really achieved international status as a hero revered among all the Greeks, but others did, including the aforementioned Heracles and Perseus, both sons of Zeus. Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene of Mycenae (with whom the god had slept in the guise of her own husband, Amphitryon), was plagued from birth by the hateful jealousy of the goddess Hera; most famously, he had to strangle snakes sent by her into his crib to kill him! Even then, Heracles revealed his superhuman strength. Not surprisingly, the Greeks admired him much for this, but they also respected his sense of comradeship (as with his half brother Iphicles and the latter’s son Iolaus), his fighting skills (as in his sack of Troy), his spirit of adventure (as when he joined the Argonauts), and his perseverance. The latter was displayed nowhere better than in the Labors he undertook in the service of the wicked king Eurystheus of Argos in penance for Heracles’ crazed

Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes

murder of his own wife Megara and their children (the work, ultimately, of Hera). The Greeks believed that Heracles took his own life by immolation on a funeral pyre (driven to do so by the tortuous pain of a poisoned cloak unwittingly given to him by his last wife, Deianeira), but that the goddess Athena, who had supported him through many of his adventures, rescued his spirit and brought him to live eternally among the gods; indeed, he married Hebe, goddess of youth and daughter of Hera. His mortal descendants, the Heraclidae, became the ancestors of the Spartan and Macedonian kings. Heracles’ half-brother, Perseus, was the child of Zeus and Princess Danae of Argos, who had been imprisoned by her father Acrisius in fear of an oracle that foretold the latter’s death at the hands of his own grandson. No walls could prevent Zeus from visiting Danae, in this case as a shower of gold, but she and her infant son were nonetheless cast into the sea as punishment. Rescued when their “coffin” landed on the island of Seriphus, Perseus grew up to face the jealousy of the local King Polydectes, who sought to separate mother and son by dispatching the latter on the mission of securing the head of Medusa. Like the Labors of Heracles, this was intended as an impossible task that would hopefully end the young man’s life. Instead, provided by Athena and Hermes with winged sandals, Hades’ cap of invisibility, a sickle with which to cut off the Gorgon’s head, and a magical bag in which to place it, Perseus succeeded; on his return journey, he rescued Princess Andromeda of Ethiopia from the monster Cetus, married her, and brought her home with him. Perseus used Medusa’s image to turn a number of his enemies to stone along the way before handing the head over to Athena as a trophy. In the end, having killed his grandfather by accident at the Larissian games, Perseus swapped the rule of Argos with his cousins so that he might become king of Tiryns, where he and Andromeda raised six children! Heroes like Theseus, Heracles, and Perseus symbolized many fundamental Greek values, including the notion of standing up for oneself and defending one’s dignity; this was a major definition of excellence (arete¯). They were thus role models of honor (time¯), having achieved successful results through conspicuous bravery, skill, and wisdom, and warnings against losing and disgrace which, in Greek society, would result in exposure to unbearable contempt and ridicule in the form of shame (aidoˉs). Myths about heroes did not always emphasize their good deeds, though. The spirit of Actaeon of Thebes, for instance, was said to have devastated the fields of Boeotia until people took a statue of him and chained it to a rock. Similarly, Athenians believed that the spirit of Orestes terrified nighttime wanderers by beating them up and stealing their clothes, while the people of Temesa in southern Italy feared the spirit of one of Odysseus’ companions, who, having been lynched for raping a local girl, demanded annual sacrifices of virgins (until the “heroic” being

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was himself beaten up and forced into the sea by the Olympic boxer Euthymus, who was then heroized by the Temesans!). Moreover, myths about heroes frequently served to ground social institutions; the essential customs of Greek society, whether farming or hunting, playing musical instruments or deliberating on justice, appear in the myths usually as gifts or instructions from the gods. Thus, the Athenian hero Triptolemus, prince of Eleusis, became the founder of agriculture, thanks to Demeter and Persephone, which he taught to the world riding in his winged cart. In many ancient Greek myths, women appeared as instruments of the gods or as damsels in distress to be rescued by male heroes, but there were stories of female heroines as well, again often told to explain prominent elements of local society. For instance, Aglaurus, daughter of King Cecrops of Athens, had a child by the god Ares and so became the spiritual protector of young Athenian military trainees, the ephebes, with her own shrine on the Acropolis; her sister Pandrosus remained so loyal to the divine that she was actually worshipped in tandem with Athena. The daughters of Orion sacrificed themselves to stop a plague that would have otherwise destroyed Orchomenos; Hades and Persephone took pity on them and translated their spirits into comets as the Koronides. Leucothea, who was worshipped as a powerful marine goddess across the Greek mainland and across the Aegean region, was believed to have been a mortal woman originally, Princess Ino of Thebes; as a human, she famously helped to raise Dionysus and as a demigod, she famously rescued Odysseus when in distress at sea. A number of ancient Greek myths have associations of some sort with rites of passage. The tales of Hera’s gadfly chasing Princess Io of Argos around Greece in the form of a white cow (into which her lover Zeus had transformed Io to shield her from Hera’s wrath!) until Io gave birth to Zeus’s son, or of the daughters of King Proetus of Tiryns driven into madness where they imagined themselves cows (after insulting Hera) and later “tamed” by the hero Melampus and his team of young Sicyonian men, are seen by scholars as reflections of transitional rites for Greek females from youth into adulthood. Parallel examples are provided by myths involving the sacrifice of royal daughters. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, sacrificed his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, to placate Artemis; the goddess rescued the young woman, however, and Iphigenia came to be worshipped as a goddess herself by young Greek girls transitioning into adulthood or by the families of women who had died in childbirth. When the aforementioned Aglaurus disobeyed orders from Athena by opening the box in which the goddess kept protected the infant hero Erechtheus/Erichthonios, the girl went mad and leapt off the Acropolis to her death in a sort of “sacrifice” by suicide. Every summer, in commemoration of this event, two Athenian girls on the verge of puberty carried sealed baskets on their heads containing “secret items” during the nighttime festival called the Arrhephoria. In imitation of the royal daughters,

Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes

the girls “died” (symbolized by taking the baskets down from the Acropolis into an underground chamber near the sacred precinct of Aphrodite in the Gardens), but they were rescued from death (thanks to leaving their baskets behind without opening them and picking up new ones to bring back to the Acropolis), and, furthermore, made the transition from service to the virgin goddess Athena to that of Aphrodite, goddess of sexual love; the Athenians regarded the girls as having, in this sense, also died to their childhood and having been reborn into womanhood. Naturally, Greek hero tales also suggest elements from rites of passage for males. For instance, the Mycenaean Greeks (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), who revered the hero Perseus, apparently incorporated the myth of his slaying Medusa within their initiation rites for young warriors; the use by many Greek soldiers of the Gorgoneion (the image of Medusa’s head) on their shields likely stemmed from this tradition. Indeed, scholars have speculated that the violent image of the Gorgoneion actually embodies the psychology of Greek soldiers themselves in the heat of battle (angry-eyed, screaming with brandished teeth, etc.)! Myths also taught Greeks to avoid pollution (miasma), which resulted from contact with something or someone considered threatening to the fabric of society or to the natural/divine order of things. In myth, this almost always involved extreme behaviors such as cannibalism, parricide, or incest, all seen as sacrilegious. The classic tale in this regard would have to be the story of Theban Oedipus, who killed his own father and slept with his own mother, only to produce twin sons who battled to the death against each other. Unwittingly or not, Oedipus had brought pollution down on his own head and on that of his family; his community, too, suffered from a plague until the truth of his actions came out and he atoned for them, in part, by gouging out his own eyes and proceeding into exile (that is, by becoming the pharmakos, or scapegoat). The Greeks firmly believed that such “crimes” as his left their stain through the generations, bringing down upon one’s descendants the curse of the gods in the form of chaos, until some sort of purification (katharmos) took place (perhaps symbolized in the near-total destruction of Oedipus’ family). Greeks often sympathized with the tragedy of Oedipus’ life and family, and so one should not really associate it with the ancient concepts of hybris (excessive pride, or, more precisely, overstepping one’s boundaries as a human being) and nemesis (divine correction or due retribution as well as public disapproval of what an individual should feel ashamed of ); an ancient Greek would have said that one should never sympathize with hybris. In the ancient Greek mind, then, a better example of a hubristic myth would be the tale of Sisyphus. Greedy and murderous while alive, Sisyphus found himself after death punished for his particular wickedness by being chained to a huge rock in the underworld. The scheming man ridiculed Thanatos (Death itself ) for the weakness of the chains, taunting him to switch places and see how easily they could be broken. In fact, of course, the

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chains were strong enough to hold a god; Thanatos thereby imprisoned himself and Sisyphus escaped back to the land of the living for a second lifetime. After dying again, though, Sisyphus was able to persuade Hades to release him from the underworld so that he might go back to his wife and punish her for failing to perform the proper rites for his burial; Greeks considered these of such significance. In this way, he cheated Death again, because he then refused to return to the underworld. This time, though, the Guide of the Dead, the god Hermes, dragged Sisyphus back and enchained him for good, at the base of a cliff in Tartarus where a rock of death flattened him over and over, despite his efforts to push it off. The actions of Sisyphus, when alive and after death, qualified as the ultimate examples of hybris; he had pushed beyond the proper limits of human behavior repeatedly, in a gratuitous, self-pleasing, almost self-congratulatory fashion and with a sense of being able to get away with it, deliberately trying to do things that humans were not permitted to do in the universal order. His punishment constituted course correction (nemesis), which the Greeks took to heart, by telling this story time and time again and by depicting its scenes on many works of art. The Greeks conceived of their heroes, male or female, as unique individuals possessing certainly formidable qualities of body and mind, qualities superior to normal human beings. Heroes welcomed danger, showing off by means of it, and feared no risks. Bold and eager, like athletes, they sought prizes and honor through action, to win praise and to surpass others; like the gods, they were strong and good-looking. Yet primarily heroes were motivated by chains of events set in motion by the divine and inspired by divine forces; their human will paled in comparison to the will of the gods. The tales of heroes thus appear to have been aimed at reinforcing the gap between mortals and gods. The Greeks adapted and modified their myths over time to address their beliefs about gods and heroes, to explain historical developments, religious institutions, social structures, and the very existence of communities, to interpret current crises, and to grapple with fundamentals of human nature; as a means of communal instruction, mythologizing established answers to some questions but also encouraged a search for others. Myths also grew out of their oral performances by poets and stage actors into literary and artistic forms that invited intellectual rationalization and allegorical interpretation. They remained a form of entertainment among children and adults in a variety of settings while also spurring the scholarly “field” of mythography in Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE) in which stories received formal explication and categorization by theme. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted

Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes

Statuary, Classical; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Family and Gender: Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Daughters; Fathers; Men; Mothers; Sexuality; Sons; Women; Food and Drink: Nectar and Ambrosia; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Household Religion; Plague/Epidemic Disease; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/ Underworld; Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Creation; Deification; Libations and Offerings; Magic; Olympian Gods; Oracles; Orphism; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Primary Documents: Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown) FURTHER READING Antonaccio, C. 1995. An Archaeology of Ancestors. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Bentley, J. 1985. Restless Bones: The Story of Relics. London: Constable. Bowra, C. M. 1957. The Greek Experience. London and New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Bremmer, J., ed. 1987. Interpretations of Greek Mythology. London and New York: Routledge. Burkert, W. 1979. Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Burkert, W. 1992. The Orientalizing Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cairns, D. 1993. Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Dover, K. J. 1974. Greek Popular Morality. London: Basil Blackwell. Dowden, K. 1989. Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology. London and New York: Routledge. Dowden, K. 1992. The Uses of Greek Mythology. London and New York: Routledge. Farnell, L. R. 1921. Greek Hero-Cults. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fisher, N.  R.  E. 1992. Hybris: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Aris & Phillips. Galinsky, K. 1972. The Heracles Theme. London: Basil Blackwell. Häag, R. 1999. Ancient Greek Hero Cult. Stockholm: Coronet. Kearns, E. 1989. The Heroes of Attica. London: Institute of Classical Studies. Kirk, G. S. 1974. The Nature of Greek Myths. London: Penguin. Larson, J. 1995. Greek Heroine Cults. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Malkin, I. 1987. Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill. Neils, J. 1987. The Youthful Deeds of Theseus. Rome: Brentschneider. Nilsson, M. P. 1940. Greek Folk Religion. New York: Columbia University Press. Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schachter, A. 1982. Cults of Boiotia. London: Institute of Classical Studies. Vernant, J.-P. 1980. Myth and Society in Ancient Greece. Brighton, U.K.: Harvester Press.

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OFFERINGS. See LIBATIONS AND OFFERINGS OLYMPIAN GODS The Linear B tablets discovered in the archaeological record of the Mycenaean palace complexes of the Bronze Age (c. 1700–1100 BCE) reveal that even the earliest Greek culture believed in what later Greeks would call the Olympian gods; the names of Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Artemis, Ares, and Hermes all appear in the texts. Eventually, these, and other divinities whom the Greeks believed dwelled upon the high peak of Mt. Olympus, outclassed the highest Mycenaean deities

Marble frieze from the Parthenon at Athens depicting seated Olympian gods, c. 438–432 BCE. The Athenians celebrated a major festival in honor of Athena every four years, the Greater Panathenaia, which included a huge procession through the city; the frieze on the exterior wall of the Parthenon portrayed even the gods participating in this festival, as seen in this image of Poseidon, Apollo, and Artemis in attendance. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Religion and Beliefs: Olympian Gods

(known as Wanax and Wanassa, “Lord” and “Lady”), becoming the most important spiritual beings of the Greek pantheon. Scholars cannot ascertain the precise origin of Greek polytheism, though they strongly suspect a connection with the religions of the Ancient Near East. The best concise account of the origin of the Olympian gods, Hesiod’s poem the Theogony, clearly betrays its debt to the older cultures to the east of Greece; Hesiod obviously reworks Hurrian and Hittite adaptations of Mesopotamian myths to describe successive generations of gods, including the Olympians. The first Olympians were the children of Kronos (Time) and Rhea (Abundance), themselves the children of Ouranos (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). Kronos, who then ruled the universe, feared overthrow at the hands of his children, so he decided to swallow each one as it was born. Finally, Rhea, disgusted by this heinous behavior, smuggled her last child, Zeus, to the island of Crete, where he was raised in secret. Once mature, Zeus returned to challenge his father, forcing him to vomit up his “imprisoned” brothers and sisters. Zeus imprisoned Kronos in Tartarus, the deep wells of the Earth, in that way seizing control of time itself. This move, however, unleashed a conflict with all of his father’s allies across the universe, and especially upon the Earth itself. In this cataclysmic war, the Titanomachy, the Olympians destroyed some of the Titans, imprisoned others, and compelled or persuaded still others to work for the new order of affairs; Atlas, for instance, received punishment for resisting the Olympians by being forced to hold the Heavens above the Earth, thereby preventing the two from colliding into one another. The appearance of the cosmos, and of the very surface of the Earth, was altered by this contest for power. By it, Zeus became the new ruler of the cosmos. His brothers challenged him for their fair share of powers on the Earth itself; Zeus took the region of the sky as his special purview, while Hades took the underworld and Poseidon the waters of the world. Although one of their sisters, Hestia, the fire force, guardian of hearth and home, remained virginal, the other two, Hera (the fertility force of women, jealous protector of marriages and mothers) and Demeter (the fertility force of agriculture and the harvest), paired up with Zeus to produce younger Olympians. Zeus, indeed, became infamous for his relationships with Olympian, Titan, and human females. Greeks regarded the offspring of the first-generation Olympians, especially the children of Zeus, as having the greatest impact on their daily lives. We might group Apollo, Asclepius, Athena, Persephone, and Hephaestus in one category of the younger Olympians. Apollo, son of Zeus and the Titaness Leto, introduced humanity to music, prophecy, and sophisticated culture, while his son, Asclepius, taught people how to heal their wounds and cure their ailments. Athena, born out of Zeus’s head (he had swallowed her mother, the Oceanid Metis), symbolized

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intelligence, wisdom, planning, and strategy, whether employed in craftsmanship or warfare. Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, brought the seasons of the year to the natural world, assisting her mother with the productivity of the earth. Hephaestus, son of Hera, commanded the volcanic fires of the Earth just as humans commanded the fire they utilized in their crafts. The other Olympians verbally abused him for his lameness (according to various stories, either the result of a birth defect or of being thrown from Mt. Olympus by his mother), and yet they depended upon his considerable talents for much of their special equipment (like the thunder bolts wielded by Zeus). More than any other Olympian, Hephaestus symbolized the paradox of humanity itself: weakness paired with skill at invention and creation. In another category of younger Olympians were Artemis, Dionysus, and Hermes. Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis, protected the wilderness from human greed and devastation, while also watching over young women, whom Greek men regarded as potentially wild and dangerous, in their process of sexual maturation. Dionysus embodied that innate human tendency to challenge all established norms, to be just as animal as human, just as feminine as masculine, even to embrace emotion and irrationality rather than the intellect. Frequently on the move rather than tied down, and hard to pin down because of the many masks he wore or personalities he assumed, Dionysus resembled his half-brother Hermes (son of Zeus and the nymph Maia), the lucky traveler and trickster who had the power to cross back and forth between this world of the living and the underworld of the dead. Finally, a category could be made of Ares and Aphrodite. Ares, son of Zeus and Hera, was the recklessly brutal force within us, unleashed and embraced in warfare; he shared what love he possessed (or at least passion) with the other “carnal” entity of the Greek pantheon, Aphrodite (sometimes regarded as the daughter of Zeus and Dione, sometimes as the product of a reaction between the Ocean and the severed genitals of Ouranos), the energy of unstoppable yearning and lustful desire. The Olympians lived forever and possessed powers superior to anything humans could imagine for themselves. They demonstrated an attitude of smugness and a general indifference to morals that the Greeks could only dream of emulating. Otherwise, though, they were very much like humans, more anthropomorphized than the deities in any previous ancient culture. The Greeks attributed to their gods all the same passions, vices, craftiness, and capacity for evil that humans possessed. In addition, the Olympians, like their human “pawns,” could not stand against certain Primordial Forces, like Chance (Tyche), distributor of the gifts of life, or the Fates (Moirai), determiners of the destiny and limits of life. The Olympian gods may have lived high up on the inaccessible and frightening heights of the tallest mountain of Greece, but each of them represented, protected, and

Religion and Beliefs: Oracles

encouraged important elements of the human experience down on the ground, in all its paradoxical reality. See also: Arts: Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Oracles; Priests and Priestesses; Prophecy and Divination; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Cosmology; Primary Documents: Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth (Date Unknown) FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carpenter, T. H. 1991. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ORACLES Ancient oracles were, strictly speaking, fixed points on the map of the Greek world, sacred to particular divine powers, where direct contact with the divine could be achieved, or the primary religious personnel who served at such sites, through whom the divine communicated to other mortals. The Greeks used terms like thespisma for such a place and thespiste¯s or thespioˉdos for such persons, the essential meaning of the words being “filled with the divine.” Oracular shrines possessed great longevity, serving for many, many centuries as places where Greeks and other ancient peoples sought answers to pressing questions, preparation for the unknown, even assistance in the management of crises. Oracles provided guidance and reassurance, and also warnings and threats. Even in the latter cases, the Greeks accepted their messages as divine and incontrovertible, with no thought of retaliation against oracles even for the harshest “divine” criticisms. Two of the most prominent oracles were located in Asia Minor and not really that far apart from one another. In the territory of Colophon sat the oracle of Apollo at Claros. Consulted as far back as the tenth century BCE and still in use all the way through the fourth century CE, it was believed to have been founded by the seer Mopsus, the grandson of the legendary blind seer Tiresias of Thebes. At Claros, a man served as the mouthpiece of the god, recruited by the priests of the Temple of Apollo from the Ionian populations of the nearby region; this man sat in an underground chamber beneath the temple, drinking from the waters of a sacred spring

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there, which supposedly imparted to him divine inspiration. Only on certain nights could visitors come to him with their questions; the priests of the temple collected these, brought them down to the oracle, and wrote his responses in the form of poetic verses. South of Colophon stood the oracle of Apollo at Didyma, approached by means of the Sacred Way from the city of Miletus. From the early Archaic Period until the sack of Didyma by the Persians near the beginning of the fifth century BCE, an aristocratic clan of priests, the Branchidae, ran the shrine, claiming descent from a youth favored by Apollo; supposedly, Alexander the Great reactivated the site’s oracular powers in the late fourth century BCE and his successors in the region, both the Seleucid royal family based in Syria and the Ptolemaic royal family based in Egypt, provided their patronage to Didyma, allowing it to flourish once again. Indeed, under the Romans, the oracle continued to be consulted until the beginning of the fourth century CE. As at Claros, a sacred spring, this one located within the temple building itself, provided the inspirational contact between the god and his oracle, in this case, a young woman recruited from Milesian territory. The oracle did not drink from the waters, however; instead, she sat on a bar suspended over the spring and dipped either her garment or her foot into it to absorb the divine energy. Again, as at Claros, visitors could only ask the oracle questions on particular days, always allowing her to fast for three days beforehand inside the chamber of the sacred spring. On the Greek mainland itself, three fixed oracles operated. At Olympia in southern Greece, site of the famous Olympic Games, people came to consult Zeus. From at least the early eighth century BCE through to the end of the fourth century CE, they visited the sacred temple, whether or not the athletic festival was taking place, and offered sacrifices in hopes that the local priests could divine from them messages from the god. Hence, in this case, the oracular function was performed by the priests themselves through their visual observations, rather than by an individual who literally spoke for the divine. In northern Greece, people consulted Zeus at Dodona. Noted even by Homer, and dating back perhaps four centuries before his time, its tremendous sanctuary, or temenos, eventually contained temples to Dione, Heracles, Aphrodite, and Themis, as well as to Zeus. Originally staffed by priests, by Classical times, three priestesses administered Dodona; they were called Peleiades (doves), like those depicted as sitting in the sacred oak of Zeus featured on ancient Greek coins. Over the generations, the local Greeks of Epirus planted and replanted sacred oaks at Dodona; they believed that the priestesses could “hear” the voice of Zeus in the rustling of the oak leaves and in the sounds made by actual doves that nested in its branches. Visitors from all over the Greek world inscribed their questions for the god on thin sheets of lead, thousands of which have survived. They testify to

Religion and Beliefs: Oracles

the wide array of questions directed to the oracle of Dodona, most of them quite personal, like that of a certain Heraclides, who asked about his wife giving him a child, or of a certain Lysanias, who asked whether Amyla’s child was actually his, or of a certain Gerioton, who asked about whether or not he should get married. The oracle of Dodona, victim of multiple sacks at the hands of warring armies over the generations, continued to function into the third century CE. By at least the fifth century BCE, the Pythia at Delphi served as the most trusted oracle among the Greeks; at times, in fact, more than one oracle served there at the same time because of how busy the sacred site was. Chosen by the priests of Apollo there, sometimes a virgin maiden from the local area, sometimes a woman beyond child-bearing years, the Pythia was always chaste, dedicating her life and her person to the service of the god. Although the details remain controversial among scholars, some believe that she sat inside a chamber underneath

Vase painting of an old man consulting an oracle, fourth century BCE. The Greek gods, particularly Zeus and Apollo, spoke through human mouthpieces, or oracles, at designated sacred places in the Aegean region. The Pythia, priestess of Apollo at Delphi, was the most famous and trusted of these oracles. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

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the Temple of Apollo, where seismologists have shown that two earthquake faults intersect; chewing poisonous laurel leaves and breathing in bituminous petrochemical fumes (especially ethylene, according to modern investigations) that emerged from an opening in the ground over the fault lines, the Pythia would have lived in a near-constant hallucinogenic trance; the ancients would have interpreted this as possession by the god. Some scholars reject this reconstruction and argue that she simply inhaled the smoke from burning laurel leaves on an altar inside the temple, in which case she would still have been lucid but gradually placing herself into a self-induced hypnotic state. In one way or another, oracles at Delphi were reported to have compromised their health, dying in a violent delirium after serving only a few years. A new Pythia was, thus, a frequent necessity. Visitors came from across the Greek world, and beyond, to ask this important mouthpiece of Apollo whether or not they should make certain decisions. The priests of Apollo’s temple at Delphi would line up those visitors according to status, the first in line, of course, being those of highest status. The priests then wrote down the requests of each visitor in the form of yes-or-no questions, just as at the other oracular shrines already noted, and delivered those questions to the Pythia. Most of the inquiries known to us had to do with public religious matters, especially regarding how to properly perform certain rituals, but even very personal questions, like how to get over lovesickness, were asked. On each day prescribed by the priests for consultations, the Pythia responded, from dawn till dusk, to all sorts of requests, and the priests interpreted her ambiguous mumblings for the visitors, writing them out in the form of poetic verses that often seemed more like riddles than answers. The Greeks did not follow the words of oracles blindly, nor seek them always when they might have. For instance, during the Persian Wars, the oracle of Delphi recommended that the Athenians either flee their city or hide behind wooden walls, an evident absurdity against the might of the Persian hordes. The Athenian statesman Themistocles refused to accept the seemingly inescapable doom predicted by the oracle. Instead, he chose to openly interpret her message in terms more favorable and encouraging to Athens; he argued that the “wooden walls” meant the Athenian fleet of warships. Besides, many of those Greeks who resisted the Persians felt that they could not trust oracles like that at Delphi; after all, the Amphictyonic Council that governed the sacred site included a number of states that had “Medized,” that is, gone over to the Persians. Indeed, on many occasions in Greek history, the oracle seemed to be anti-Athenian in its responses, perhaps a result of the general hostility toward Athens in that part of the Greek world. Even oracles, then, could apparently be corrupted by politics and, indeed, by bribes, as the case of King Cleomenes I of Sparta proves; when he falsely accused his fellow

Religion and Beliefs: Oracles

ruler, Demaratus, of illegitimate ancestry, which disqualified the latter from his kingship, the Delphic oracle agreed, having been bribed to do so by Cleomenes! The Thessalian demigod, Asclepius, son of Apollo, also possessed his own oracular sites. At Trikka in northern Greece, Epidaurus and Messene in southern Greece, on the south Aegean island of Cos, and at Pergamum in Asia Minor, healing messages came to visitors while they slept in his sanctuary (enkoime¯sis), a process which the Romans later called incubation. If the divine dreams themselves did not cure the visitor, the priests of the god would interpret the dream messages for him or her and prescribe appropriate medical treatment. A supposed later manifestation of the oracular powers of Asclepius appeared during the second century CE in Paphlagonia; a man named Alexander from Abonuteichos claimed that a snake he had raised since birth was the healing god himself (it even supposedly possessed human hair, as described in literary texts and as seen in artworks as well). The snake was, after all, the symbol of Asclepius, who often appeared with two snakes intertwined around his healing staff, the caduceus. Alexander called the snake Glycon, and Glycon spoke only to Alexander. People came from miles around with questions for the snake god, whose interpreter answered their petitions for a sum of money. Across Asia Minor, around the Black Sea region, and into the Balkans, Alexander’s cult of Glycon at Abonuteichos gained wide popularity and even official recognition from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, despite the attacks of authors like Lucian of Samosata, who attempted to debunk the oracular cult as charlatanism. Nearly two centuries after Alexander’s own death, believers continued to pray to him for answers to their queries. Non-Greeks, like the Lydian King Croesus and the Egyptian King Necho II, applied to Greek oracular shrines for guidance; Greeks, for their part, visited nonGreek shrines, especially the oracle of the Egyptian god Ammon at Siwa in the deserts of western Egypt on the road from the Greek colony of Cyrene. Greek authors make mention of this sacred oasis as far back as the poet Pindar in the early fifth century BCE; it figures in the narrative of the historian Herodotus near the end of that century and continued to be consulted at least into the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE). During the Peloponnesian War, when the Athenians considered sending a military expedition to conquer the island of Sicily, opponents of that plan sent to Ammon, more accurately, Amun-Re, whom the Greeks regarded as just another manifestation of Zeus, and, to their disappointment, received an oracle that the expedition would succeed (in fact, it failed miserably!). Certainly the most famous visitor to the shrine was Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE; he was informed by the priests there, who interpreted the mysterious “movements” and “looks” of the god’s sacred statue as meaning that he was, in

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fact, the son of Zeus-Ammon. Alexander’s successors later minted coins depicting him with the sacred attributes of the divinity, the ram’s horns, emerging from the sides of his head. The words of their oracles, especially the oracle at Delphi, must have led the Greeks to successful results more often than not, or at least to outcomes that made sense to them; otherwise the people would have abandoned them as a method of consulting the divine powers. The priests who interpreted for the mouthpieces of the gods tended to offer advice in moderate terms, which provided the Greeks a sense of security and, at the same time, a sense of control over their own destinies. Public authorities and private individuals made the journey to the oracular sites, no matter how difficult or how far away, to ask the divine about everything from the founding of colonies to the breeding of particular animals, from the buying of a certain house to the waging of war. Oracles were beloved of the Greek people in general, and especially of their storytellers; how different the ancient tragedies of Sophocles would be without the oracles that so often drive them! Even the career of Greece’s most famous philosopher, Socrates of Athens, was supposedly motivated by the oracle of Delphi, who told his friend Chaerephon, in answer to the latter’s question about the wisest man in the world, that it was, in fact, Socrates. See also: Housing and Community: Colonization; Health and Illness; Household Religion; Plague/Epidemic Disease; Politics and Warfare: Diplomacy; Leagues/Alliances; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Warfare, Attitudes toward; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Priests and Priestesses; Prophecy and Divination; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups; Primary Documents: Plutarch on Father (Philip) and Son (Alexander) (Second Century CE) FURTHER READING Bowden, H. 2005. Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edelstein, E. J., and L. Edelstein. 1998. Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Eidinow, E. 2007. Oracles, Curses, and Risk among the Greeks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fontenrose, J. 1978. The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations with a Catalogue of Responses. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Fontenrose, J. 1988. Didyma: Apollo’s Oracle, Cult, and Companions. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Harris, W. V. 2009. Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Morgan, C. 1990. Athletes and Oracles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parke, H. W. 1967a. Greek Oracles. London: Hutchinson University Library.

Religion and Beliefs: Orphism Parke, H. W. 1967b. The Oracles of Zeus: Dodona, Olympia, Ammon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Parke, H. W. 1985. The Oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor. London and New York: Croom Helm.

ORPHISM By Orphism, modern scholars mean the traditions of belief and thought that the ancient Greeks associated with the mythical poet Orpheus. Venerated especially by Pythagoreans, Bacchantes, and Neoplatonists, Orphism permeated ancient Greek society and promised to its devotees a blessed afterlife of joys. According to Greek legend, Orpheus was the son of Apollo, god of high culture and civilized living, and Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry and eloquence. Such parentage endowed him with a singing voice that possessed extraordinary powers; for instance, as one of the famous Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, Orpheus was able to overwhelm the song of the Sirens, which otherwise brought average sailors crashing to their deaths. Orpheus indeed had many encounters with death. Perhaps the most famous story in this regard relates the loss of his beloved Eurydice. During their wedding festivities, she was bitten by a snake and died from its poison. Her spirit descended to the underworld, but Orpheus refused to accept that as the end of their life together. Instead, he himself traveled into the realm of Hades and sang for the god and for his consort Persephone; indeed, Orpheus enchanted them with his musical voice, moving them to tears with his songs. The rulers of the underworld were persuaded by this experience to make an exception in Eurydice’s case, to let her return to the world of the living with her husband. They did so on one condition, however, that Orpheus walk ahead of Eurydice and never look back to see if she was behind him until they had reached the sunlight at the Earth’s surface; in other words, he still had to pass a test of faith and not give in to human doubt. Unfortunately, Orpheus could not resist his desire to turn to see if his wife was there and when he did so too soon, she vanished again into the darkness of the realm of the dead. Utterly distraught, Orpheus could not abide mundane life in human society and so hid out in the wilderness of Thrace, where his songs of lamentation charmed animals and plants, and even caused inanimate objects to become animate. Some said that he was assaulted there and torn apart by Thracian women who regarded him as antisocial, which in ancient Greek culture was highly frowned upon as dangerous; others said that the attack came from Maenads, crazed followers of the god Dionysus, whom Orpheus had insulted by making all his praises to Helios-Apollo. The Muses, his aunts, collected the pieces of his body and provided them with

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proper burial. His head floated downriver and out to sea to the island of Lesbos, where people said it pronounced prophecies in song. The ancient Greeks attributed a large number of poems to Orpheus, most of them relating the poet’s inspired and experiential knowledge about the afterlife and the gods, making them almost visionary in quality and enshrouding them within an air of mystery. As a consequence, many Greeks committed themselves to the interpretation of this poetry in an effort to unlock its secrets for their own lives here on Earth and for their afterlives; they came to practice “Orphism.” Orphism focused especially on the long poems attributed to Orpheus, what are called theogonies, “origin stories of the gods.” Despite the poet’s storied indifference toward Dionysus, the Orphic theogonies “shared” with humanity much about that paradoxical deity, especially about his double birth, which had significance for human existence. The poems asserted that there had been a proto-Dionysus called Zagreus, son of Zeus and Persephone. When Zagreus had been an infant, his father placed him on the throne of the universe as its ruler in his absence. The older generation of deities known as Titans refused to accept this and, at the urging of Zeus’s jealous wife Hera, lured Zagreus with some toys into an ambush, where they attacked and killed him, ripping or cutting him into pieces and eating some of his body. When Zeus returned to Olympus, he destroyed the criminals with his lightning bolts, but found the heart of his son still alive amidst the ashes. He reincarnated Zagreus, now as Dionysus. Thus, the Orphic tale of Zagreus-Dionysus made the latter the ultimate ruler of the cosmos, the designated successor to Zeus; it also elevated Persephone, queen of the underworld, to the role of ultimate divine mother, a notion which appeared also in one of Pindar’s odes (fifth century BCE). So, followers of Orphism believed that they needed to placate not only Dionysus but also Persephone if they had any hope of attaining true life after death. The Orphic tradition also related how Zeus had taken the soot from the destroyed Titans, which contained a portion of Zagreus consumed, and created out of it the race of human beings. Followers of Orphism interpreted this as meaning that humans are mortal because of the Titan in them, but eternal because of the Zagreus-Dionysus in them. Humanity has also inherited from the Titans the guilt of having murdered Zagreus; the hateful body (soˉma) thus serves as a prison for the immortal spirit (  psyche¯) within it. The spirit achieves temporary release from the body whenever a person dreams; hence, dream interpretation figured as a part of Orphism. Full escape from the trap of the body, however, would require thousands of years of rebirths and returns in certain plant and animal, as well as human, forms. Orphic belief sought to advance this process through purgation of the body’s desires (the Titan in us) and atonement

Religion and Beliefs: Orphism

for the murder of Zagreus. This involved a righteous lifestyle, abstention from the eating of flesh and certain vegetal matter, and initiation into the secrets of Orpheus. Obviously, if human souls transmigrate among different life forms, it would be wise not to eat of them; hence, the requirement of abstention. In addition, the Titans’ cannibalistic bloodlust made fasting in various ways an attractive behavior through which their human “descendants” might distance themselves from such savagery. Moral conduct, Orphism insisted, directly affects the cycle of psychic transmigration, helping to purify even the body so as to reduce the number of reincarnations needed to achieve spiritual freedom. Even when one’s evil conduct is so great as to have become a “disease,” Orphism teaches that it still can be healed by the “medicine” of ethical philosophy (a notion shared by the Sophist Gorgias and the philosopher Plato). Indeed, the fourth-century BCE Derveni Papyrus preserves a commentary in philosophical terms on one of the Orphic theogonies. Orphism further emphasized that those who do not conduct themselves with righteousness in this life will suffer punishment after death. As it was written, “what you have done, you must endure.” This differed from traditional Greek religion, which taught that the spirits of the dead, aside from those of heroes or the truly vicious, reside aimlessly in the Halls of Hades, certainly not rewarded, but also not really punished. The alternative beliefs of Orphism inspired the play Frogs by the Athenian comic poet Aristophanes (fifth/fourth centuries BCE); it portrays a much more sinister and terrifying afterlife, complete with monsters, snakes, beasts, and fearful penalties, than what most Greeks typically imagined. Similar scenes appear on painted vases and wall panels in tombs of fourth century BCE Apulia (southeastern Italy). Orphism ultimately urged its followers to seek what is common among all things, which would also be the most simple and the everlasting. This required knowledge of the essence of all things gained through initiatory rituals. Orpheotelestai (teachers of Orphic mysteries) prepared people for the hereafter through such rites and spread the stories and songs of Orpheus far and wide in the Greek world. Orpheotelestai showed the toys of the child Dionysus to the initiated and instructed the latter in how he survived death and how, reborn himself, he ventured into Hades to rescue the soul of Semele, reputed in Orphism to have been his second mother; the playwright Aristophanes even made out that Dionysus restored the tragedian Aeschylus to life, an example of a man in living memory being thus saved by the god. Initiates also practiced methods of contemplation and meditation that would help them recollect their past lives to better identify the faults they needed to correct for successful spiritual release; together with intense fasting, these practices produced mystical, out-of-body experiences among the initiated,

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bringing them into closer touch with their true spirits and with the realm of the gods. Through their hymns, Orphic initiates further learned that the many gods, despite their various names and epithets, were, in fact, all manifestations of the One (as in the phrase, “One is Hades and Zeus and Helios and Dionysus”); Orphism thus taught that the entire cosmos was ruled by a single entity, the cosmos a unity of immutable laws. In death, Orphic devotees supposedly took their secret knowledge with them. As an added precaution, they also decorated their tombs with Dionysiac motifs and painted on the walls the magical sayings of Dionysus that they had learned through initiation. In burial places from Sicily to Thessaly, archaeologists have even discovered thin gold tablets inscribed with Orphic instructions on how to secure from Dionysus and Persephone in the underworld a successful passage of the deceased into renewed life. Despite its animosity toward the physical body, something which sounds much more Persian or Hindu than Greek, Orphism became an integral element in the ancient Greek way of life. Poets, philosophers, and biographers incorporated strong Orphic beliefs into their works; Orphic texts, especially hymns, played a major role in Bacchic worship generally and in the Eleusinian Mysteries at Athens in particular. Itinerant Orpheotelestai wandered the Greek territories, displaying powers of wonder-working, like obscure rites that cured ailments or reversed bad magic; communities of devotees initiated by them grew across the Greek world, especially in places like Attica, southern Italy, and Sicily. Orphism thus had a widespread presence and exerted a heavy religious, cultural, and philosophical influence. See also: Arts: History; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Food and Drink: Vegetarianism; Housing and Community: Cemeteries; Household Religion; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/ Underworld; Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Creation; Deification; Magic; Prophecy and Divination; Pythagoreans; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Albinus, L. 2000. The House of Hades: Studies in Ancient Greek Eschatology. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Bowden, H. 2010. Mystery Cults of the Ancient World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Burkert, W. 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carpenter, T. H., and C. A. Faraone, eds. 1993. Masks of Dionysos. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cosmopoulos, M., ed. 2003. Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults. London: Taylor & Francis.

Religion and Beliefs: Priests and Priestesses Edmonds, R.  G. 2004. Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the “Orphic” Gold Tablets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faraone, C. A., and D. Obbink, eds. 1991. Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graf, F., and S. I. Johnston. 2008. Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets. London and New York: Routledge. Guthrie, W. K. C. 1952. Orpheus and Greek Religion. 2nd ed. London: Methuen. Johnston, S. I. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Larson, J. 2007. Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide. London and New York: Routledge. Linforth, I. M. 1941. The Arts of Orpheus. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Mikalson, J. D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Mylonas, G. 1961. Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Otto, W. F. 1965. Dionysus: Myth and Cult. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Segal, C. 1989. Orpheus: The Myth of the Poet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. West, M. L. 1983. The Orphic Poems. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES The presiders over public religion in the ancient Greek world were the priests (generally called hiereis) and priestesses (generally called hiereiai) in the various communities. They officiated at communal religious events, such as festivals and processions, and they managed temples and sacred precincts on behalf of the community. Some even acted as eponymous magistrates, the ones by which the community identified its calendar years (like the priestesses of Hera at Argos). They were, then, public servants, acting on behalf of their communities in the performance of piety to the gods. Each community had multiple temples and multiple religious events throughout each year; each temple had its own array of priests or priestesses and each event was either conducted by the personnel of a particular temple or combined personnel from several sacred precincts. There was no overarching hierarchy of power that linked all priests and priestesses together; in other words, no “church” organized or directed their actions. Custom and law dictated how religious officials from across a community interacted with or related to one another. Priests and priestesses were always citizens of their communities. Some were elected or appointed by governing councils or by popular vote, while others actually purchased their positions. At the Temple of Athena Nike in Athens, for example, an inscription of the mid-fifth century BCE described the appointment

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of the priestess there from among all the citizen women of Athens; the person thus selected was entitled to a share (in the form of legs and hides) of sacrifices at the temple, as well as a salary of fifty drachmas per year. Many priests and priestesses inherited their positions from parents or other family members. Elected or appointed priesthoods might last one year only, for a fixed term of several years, or for a lifetime; hereditary priesthoods tended to be lifetime positions. Lysimache, hereditary priestess of Athena Polias at Athens, for example, held her office for sixty-four years! Priests and priestesses typically came from the aristocratic clans of the community. Most Greeks seem to have been wary of usurping the aristocratic privilege of communing with the divine (“earned” by the “divine favor” shown toward their “successful” families over the generations), even in those places where democratic institutions came to dominate affairs. Hereditary priesthoods were passed down within particular clans in different ways, sometimes strictly from a father who had served as priest to his eldest son and then to that son’s eldest son (and so on), sometimes from a priest-father to all of his sons in turn (from eldest to youngest) and only then to their sons in turn (from those of the eldest to those of the youngest). This latter was the method, for instance, by which priests were selected to serve the god Poseidon in his temple at Halicarnassus. Other traditions appear more complicated, as in the cases of the priest of Poseidon Erechtheus and of the priestess of Athena Polias, both at Athens. These priesthoods were passed down by lot within two different branches of the aristocratic clan known as the Eteoboutadae. Lysimache, mentioned above, was the oldest daughter of the oldest male in the clan at the time of her succession to the priesthood; she was followed by Phanostrate, daughter of her oldest nephew, who was followed by her own daughter, Lysimache the Younger. Lysimache the Younger passed the priesthood on to her brother’s daughter, Lysistrate, who was followed by her oldest grandson’s daughter, Theodote. Beyond the requirements of proper lineage, priesthoods could be expensive to hold, in a sense like a liturgy (a public service performed by and expected of the wealthy in Greek communities). The priestess at the Temple of Demeter and Persephone in Eleusis seems to have always collected fees from each person who underwent the initiation rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries; this “salary” seems to have become even more important in Hellenistic times (323–30 BCE), when the priestess might be called upon to donate her own funds to the functioning of the sanctuary and its ceremonies (as apparently happened at many sacred places in that era of rising costs). In Greek religion, priests usually served gods and priestesses usually served goddesses. This was not always the case, though. Priestesses served Dionysus quite often, for example; indeed, in Athens during the Anthesteria festival, a ritualized

Religion and Beliefs: Priests and Priestesses

sacred marriage took place between the god and the basilinna, wife of the Basileus archoˉn, a government official who supervised many aspects of Athenian religion. Male officiants had only male attendants, while female officiants had either male or female attendants (sometimes both), depending on the ceremony being performed. For instance, a number of key religious festivals at Athens, like the Adonia, Arrhephoria, Brauronia, and Thesmophoria, excluded men, which meant that all the activities were presided over and carried out by women and girls. The particular duties of priests and priestesses varied according to the deity and temple they served rather than according to their own gender; their position was very attached to a specific sacred space and the events associated with it. In such circumstances, officiants, whether male or female, carried out essentially the same functions, like presiding over sacrifices (which were actually performed by assistants) or leading processions. They had authority over particular sacred matters but often took actions on the express authorization of and with precise instructions from the officials of their government or the assembly of voters; thus, for example, priests and priestesses could not freely put to use the treasures stored in the temples under their supervision, but they could forbid entrance into temple precincts to anyone deemed unfit by them. Ancient Greek priests and priestesses, especially those who had been elected or appointed, did not always have training in the intricacies of religious practice pertaining to their offices. As a consequence, they relied heavily on exe¯ge¯tai (technical advisors), hieroskopoi (diviners who examined the entrails), thyoskooi (sacrificing priests), and so on. At Athens, for example, the voters annually selected one exe¯ge¯te¯s from the aristocratic Bouzygae, Kerykes, or Eteoboutadae, one from the Eleusinian clan of the Eumolpidae (who also provided the priestess of Demeter and Persephone), and consulted the Pythia of Delphi for one exe¯ge¯te¯s Pythochrestos. In a few cases, priestesses were expected to be virgins and to abstain from physical relations with men, but this was not at all typical. Instead, priestesses commonly had husbands just as priests commonly had wives; normally, their spouses were not also holders of sacred posts. Priests and priestesses lived in or near sacred precincts with their families, again depending on the customary expectations of their particular position. Throughout ancient Greek history, serving well as a priest or priestess, no matter one’s background or term of office, brought oneself and one’s family great honor. Family, friends, and entire communities commemorated that honor by erecting statues of the priest or priestess or dedicating inscriptions (like our modern building plaques) to them; during their term of service, they often had special seating at theaters and other community venues, and this might be extended after their term as a perpetual honor. For instance, an inscription dating to the second century BCE records how the people of Delphi awarded to Chrysis, priestess of

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Athena Polias, a commemorative crown, proxenia status (that is, they regarded her as their contact person in Athens) to her along with her descendants, the right to consult the Oracle, and other privileges, all in recognition of the worthy role she had played in leading her citizens in a sacred procession from Athens to Delphi. In the world of the ancient Greeks, serving as a priest (hiereus) or a priestess (hiereia) did not constitute one’s career or one’s vocation or place one inside a religious community, as one might expect in a modern context. Priests and priestesses also did not form their own caste, separate or superior to the rest of society. Instead, religious personnel were just that, personnel chosen in some fashion by society to serve the particular religious needs of society. Thus, they performed vital services for and played an integral role in their communities. See also: Arts: Temple Architecture; Family and Gender: Clans/Gene¯; Housing and Community: Household Religion; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Panathenaia; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Oracles; Prophecy and Divination; Sacrifices; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Beard, M., and J. North, eds. 1990. Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Clinton, K. 1974. The Sacred Officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Connelly, J. 2007. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dignas, B., and K. Trampedach, eds. 2008. Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Officials from Homer to Heliodorus. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies. Kraemer, R. S. 1992. Her Share of the Blessings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oliver, J. H. 1950. The Athenian Expounders of the Sacred and Ancestral Law. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, S. 1999. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PROPHECY AND DIVINATION Besides visiting oracular shrines, such as Claros or Delphi, the ancient Greeks also sought supernatural guidance by consulting individual practitioners of divination, those who could intuit in a variety of ways the meanings or messages of the divine forces in the world. Probably every Greek community had such individuals, and

Religion and Beliefs: Prophecy and Divination

they sometimes wandered from one community to another, sharing their prophecies, that is, their proclamations, from the realm of the gods. The Greeks believed that the gods, especially Apollo, took possession of certain individuals in order to communicate through them or provide them with superhuman insight; in their “out-of-body” condition, these seers, or manteis, seemed to be a bit crazy but also seemed able to pick up on signs from the gods and interpret them. They read such signs in almost anything, especially in the sacrifice of animals, the behavior of birds, and natural phenomena (like storms or plagues). The importance of seers in Greek society goes back at least to Homeric times and likely far before; they seem to have been all over the place in the Greek world, conspicuously around whenever the need arose to answer questions about the divine will or the divine cause behind certain events. The “less civilized” regions of Arcadia and Acarnania produced many manteis, not surprisingly, since even the oracular shrines of the gods were located outside of the sophisticated urban centers in locations where the forces of nature, the gods themselves, were likely considered stronger and purer. Also not surprisingly, seers tended to be defenders of traditional religion, as in the case of the mantis Diopeithes in the later fifth century BCE, who famously prosecuted the philosopher Anaxagoras in Athens on charges of impiety. The Greeks had their legendary seers, like Melampus of Pylos, said to have been instructed by Apollo himself, his descendant Amphiaraus of Argos, who came to be worshipped as a demigod of oracles, or Mopsus of Epirus, credited with founding the oracular shrine at Claros. Certain historically verifiable individuals seem to have specialized in being seers and acquired widely known reputations as such, like Stilbiades (who advised the Athenian statesman Nicias), Silanos (consulted by the Athenian commander Xenophon), Hierocles (ridiculed by the comic Aristophanes), Lampon (whom the Athenians placed in charge of the establishment of the colony of Thurii), and Tisamenus of Elis. The latter, in fact, belonged to a family of manteis, the Iamidae of Olympia, who served generation after generation from the Archaic Period to the Late Roman Empire and who claimed descent from Apollo himself; the Spartans honored Tisamenus with citizenship in their polis, a very rare honor indeed. Other individuals did not live by their gift but could still tap into the divine knowledge of the cosmos because of their heredity. Homer demonstrates this notion through his character Theoclymenus. A guest of Telemachus at Ithaca, he traced his lineage back to Melampus, but he was also himself a fugitive from the blood guilt of murder. Perhaps as a result of both his ancestry and his own traumatic experience, Theoclymenus could accurately foresee and graphically foretell the impending destruction of Queen Penelope’s suitors at the hands of Odysseus.

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A sudden, mantic revelation from the gods allowed him actually to hear in advance the suitors’ screams of pain and fear and to see their blood on the walls of the banqueting hall, as well as their wandering ghosts. Professional seers frequently accompanied Greek armies on campaign, or were consulted beforehand by representatives of the polis. This tradition goes back to Homer at least, when the mythical seer Calchas served as one of the key figures with the Achaean army at Troy; he knew the present, the future, and the past, and explained to the Greeks through his gift of insight from Apollo why the plague had hit their ranks, sent by the god. Indeed, even though Homer speaks of Calchas as an excellent interpreter of the signs provided by birds to humankind, the diviner never actually needs to consult any such signs to reach his conclusions. Centuries later, in his account of the Persian Wars, the historian Herodotus described many prophecies and interpreters of prophecies. Among Xenophon’s Ten Thousand in their famous escape from Persian territory, several seers were present; Xenophon, like so many Greek commanders, was always looking for divine guidance and tried hard to explain away any discrepancies within or among the reports he received from his seers. Seers were, after all, not always right; during the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian general Alcibiades consulted a seer who predicted Athenian victory in Sicily; in fact, they were defeated! Within the Greek communities were also chresmologoi, usually taken to mean oracle mongers, who assembled collections of the sayings or stories of famous sages of Greek culture, like the legendary Orpheus, Musaeus of Athens, or Bacis of Boeotia (the latter being especially revered by Herodotus), circulating them and interpreting them as prophecies with special meanings. Even leaders of Greek communities collected such oracles, as did the Pisistratid tyrants of Athens, who placed their collection inside the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis; in 510 BCE, so the story goes, King Cleomenes I of Sparta, who had interfered in local Athenian politics, seized the Pisistratid oracle collection and, reading them, learned about the defeats that his country would suffer in the future at Athenian hands! The chresmologos Onomacritus, exiled from Athens by the tyrant Hipparchus for forging some of Musaeus’ oracles, fled to the Persian Empire, where he picked out oracles from his own collection that could be interpreted as most favorable to the Persians in their upcoming invasion of Greece. Chresmologoi seem to have had dubious reputations among the general public. They figured in Greek stage plays, in comedies usually, as characters deserving expulsion from the community for their fraudulent predictions, like the soothsayer chased out of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land in Aristophanes’ Birds. This master of Old Comedy certainly seems to have had a strong distaste for peddlers of oracles; in the Knights, he shows the oily politician Cleon plying the people with prophecies

Religion and Beliefs: Prophecy and Divination

in order to get rid of his political rivals, but Cleon finds himself bested by a humble sausage seller who presents even more promising predictions! Most seers or oracle mongers in the Greek world appear to have been men, but there was one major exception: the Sibyls. Prominent Sibyls lived on the island of Euboea at Erythrae, on the island of Samos, and in the region of the Hellespont; the oracle of Delphi was also sometimes referred to as a Sibyl. Perhaps originally a personal name, the word became a title designating a woman who spoke for the gods; the prophecies of such women came to be written down in compilations circulated across the Greek territories, providing some of the oracular material for the chresmologoi to decipher. As far as the Greeks were concerned, anyone could be a seer, in the sense that anyone might accurately interpret the signs from the gods or their will thanks to even the briefest inspiration from the divine; in the Odyssey, for example, Homer shows Queen Helen of Sparta expertly doing so on the spur of the moment and without hesitation. Diviners played a prominent part in all aspects of ancient Greek life, sometimes boosting the spirits of a person, community, or army, sometimes crushing their morale. Much depended on the psychological attitude of the recipient toward the prophecy and its interpretation, and clearly many Greeks, like Athenian theater audiences, realized that seers or oracle mongers might cheat them or be manipulated by interested parties. This may have dampened trust in divination, but it never erased it from Greek culture across the centuries. See also: Arts: History; Housing and Community: Colonization; Health and Illness; Household Religion; Plague/Epidemic Disease; Politics and Warfare: Diplomacy; Leagues/Alliances; Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Persian Wars (490–478 BCE); Warfare, Attitudes toward; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Oracles; Orphism; Priests and Priestesses; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Eidinow, E. 2007. Oracles, Curses, and Risk among the Greeks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnston, S. I. 2008. Ancient Greek Divination. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Johnston, S. I., and P. Struck, eds. 2005. Mantike¯: Studies in Ancient Divination. Leiden: Brill. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1979. Magic, Reason, and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, D., ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Parke, H. W. 1967. Greek Oracles. London: Hutchinson University Library. Parke, H. W. 1988. Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge.

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PYTHAGOREANS According to Greek tradition, the philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras of Samos (sixth century BCE) developed a following among those who shared his rather unconventional notions; a number of these followers even moved from the Aegean world to southern Italy when Pythagoras himself emigrated there to the city-state of Croton and later to Metapontum. Since he left no writings of his own behind, it is difficult now to trace the involvement of Pythagoras himself in what happened next. In any event, by the time of Aristotle (who is a major source for our knowledge of Pythagoras) two centuries later, the devotees of Pythagoras had founded a closed, mystical sect in his honor, claiming all their teachings as originating with him. These Pythagoreans would go on to influence many important figures in the history of the Greek and Roman worlds. Perhaps the most essential tenet of the Pythagoreans was monism. According to their tradition, Pythagoras’ obsession with mathematics, which he regarded as fundamentally based on the number one, led to their belief that everything in existence had to come from one origin. Moreover, the study of mathematics taught Pythagoras and his followers that the universe, despite all of its apparently different parts, operated according to basic mathematical rules that made it a fully integrated system. The universe was thus one unity (the One) rather than a collection of disparate objects and the so-called gods who supposedly constituted or ruled the universe were distortions of the “lying” poets Homer and Hesiod. Connected to this notion of the One was the Pythagorean belief in the transmigration of souls (metempsychoˉsis), perhaps adopted from Orphism. Pythagoreans insisted that the spirits of the dead never cease to exist, because nothing in the unified cosmos can ever truly cease to exist. Instead, death releases the immortal souls of living things back into the universal system where they transmigrate, being recycled into new bodies. Stemming from the belief that certain plants and especially animals contained transmigrated human souls and, if not, that they possessed their own souls came the Pythagorean injunction to restricted vegetarianism. A member of their sect was forbidden to eat any animal or even to kill them for the pleasure of the hunt or for the purpose of religious sacrifice. One of the principal goals of the Pythagoreans was freedom from the repeated cycle of life, death, transmigration, and reincarnation so that they could achieve pure bliss through eternal communion with the One. They hoped to achieve this through renunciation of earthly existence and the shackles of the senses. This entailed gymnastics to toughen the body against the demands of soft living so that the natural attachment between the body and the “enjoyments” of physical

Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans

existence (food, sex, fun, and so on) would be reduced. This also entailed systematic training of the mind to remain rationally correct in one’s everyday behavior. Since the Pythagoreans believed that the cosmos functioned with mathematical precision, they viewed the One as thoroughly rational; to achieve union with the One, a human being must also be thoroughly rational; hence, the Pythagorean emphasis on studying science and music (the latter seen as the pinnacle of mathematical perfection among human arts). Being a good Pythagorean, then, took hard work and strict, silent, daily selfreflection. Followers of Pythagoras sought to help one another in this process by forging strong communal bonds, that is, by establishing sects of devotees to the beliefs and practices attributed to their master. Initiations brought in new members (akousmatikoi, “listeners”) as leaders (telestai) shared with them secret doctrines and passwords, providing rules to live by built upon theories of society and ethical questions (“What should one do?” “What is best?”) that supposedly went back to Pythagoras himself. The theory of transmigration made Pythagoreans consider one another as all interrelated brothers and sisters. The last point deserves emphasis: unlike so many other associations in the ancient Greek world, Pythagorean sects admitted women as equals. Their sense of the oneness of humanity, derived from the oneness of the cosmos, also encouraged among Pythagoreans a tendency toward self-sacrifice, an appreciation for true friendship, and a humane attitude toward slaves, all of which would influence various tenets of the Platonic, Aristotelian, Epicurean, and Stoic philosophies. Through much of Magna Graecia, Pythagoreans also attained great political prominence. Some actually came to emphasize the differences in status among human beings based on attainment of what they considered “geometrical” perfection in this life. At Croton, for example, the followers of Pythagoras established an aristocracy of intellectuals that lasted more than half a century and whose hegemony dominated a territory four times as large as Attica (as far as the Straits of Messina and even across to the city-state of Zancle). This aristocracy actually worked to suppress all political opposition, until such opponents rose up in violence against the Pythagoreans and massacred many of them, burning them to death in their own assembly hall! Pythagoras, the sage and seer, teacher and benefactor, acquired an exaggerated aura about him (his followers claiming that he could not only recall his previous incarnations, but even bi-locate!). Not surprisingly, so did his followers, and this, together with the political machinations of some of them, invited doubts among skeptical Greeks about the sincerity and integrity of the Pythagorean sects. By the fourth century BCE, in fact, it had become a stock feature of Greek

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Middle Comedy to mock Pythagoreans as itinerant charlatans and for them to be frequently ridiculed in literature as barefoot, unclean wanderers peddling their strange vegetarianism. Yet the sect’s teachings, especially the ideal of equilibrium among the substances within the human body, had a profound influence on the medicine practiced in southern Italy (consider renowned physicians like Alcmaeon of Croton and Hippasus of Metapontum) and eventually elsewhere in the Greco-Roman world. Poets, like Ion of Chios, and architects, like Hippodamus of Miletus, were heavily indebted to Pythagoreanism for its views on existence and its emphasis on mathematical calculation to achieve perfection; the latter played into the methods of artists, like Polyclitus of Argos, in their search for symmetry, balance, and a canon of perfect beauty. Literary scholars and historians learned from the Pythagorean tradition methods of interpreting myths allegorically to reveal their “moral truths.” Platonic philosophy, especially in its Neoplatonic form, derived so much from Pythagoreanism (and its Neo-Pythagorean form) that it is impossible to disentangle them; the same may be said of Pythagorean teachings and those of Orphism (though there is much debate regarding which preceded and which followed the other). Despite any criticisms, then, and despite any failings on the part of individual Pythagoreans, the sect had a tremendous impact on the world of the ancient Greeks and of the ancient Romans. See also: Arts: History; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Lyric; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Food and Drink: Vegetarianism; Religion and Beliefs: Afterlife/Underworld; Bacchic Worship; Creation; Deification; Orphism; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Cosmology; Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy; Medicine FURTHER READING Barnes, J. 1979. The Presocratic Philosophers. London and New York: Routledge. Bowden, H. 2010. Mystery Cults of the Ancient World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Burkert, W. 1972. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cosmopoulos, M., ed. 2003. Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults. London: Taylor & Francis. Guthrie, W. K. C. 1952. Orpheus and Greek Religion. 2nd ed. London: Methuen. Kahn, C. H. 2001. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Larson, J. 2007. Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide. London and New York: Routledge. Merlan, P. 1960. From Platonism to Neoplatonism. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. O’Meara, D. J. 1989. Pythagoras Revived. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Religion and Beliefs: Sacrifices

SACRED GROVES. See TEMPLES, SHRINES, AND SACRED GROVES SACRIFICES The ancient Greeks believed that one must give up something of value, no matter how great or small, when asking for anything from the gods; the latter had no reason to comply with one’s request if they were not enticed to do so or shown some token of good faith from the worshipper. So, sacrifice held a prominent place in the Greek world. People made both bloodless and bloody sacrifices. The former consisted of various sorts of offerings, usually valuable objects or items of food. The latter, the subject of this entry, consisted of slaughtering animals. Ancient Greeks thought that certain gods preferred certain types of animals for sacrifice. Particular deities on particular occasions expected the whitest beasts, for instance, while others wanted theirs black. Dionysus preferred male goats; Demeter expected pigs, especially piglets (as at the Thesmophoria festival in her honor); Athena appreciated the trittoia, a triple offering of a sow, a bull, and a sheep; and Artemis sometimes wished for wild animals (like bears and boars). Zeus received a hecatomb, a sacrifice of one hundred white bulls, every four years during the Olympic festival; no wonder, then, that the altar to Zeus at Olympia measured about one hundred feet around and stood some twenty feet tall when the travel author Pausanias visited there in the second century CE. It was composed of the bones and ashes of sacrificial animals, watered down and solidified over generations of use! Fresh sacrifices were made each day. Moreover, the altar to Zeus at Olympia was only one of seventy altars there to a whole array of other deities! Most often sacrificed were sheep (rams, ewes, and lambs), followed by goats, pigs, and cattle; seldom did Greeks sacrifice fish, horses, or birds (though the philosopher Socrates spoke of cocks being especially sacrificed to the healing god Asclepius). Only the most perfect specimens, whether cattle, sheep, goats, or swine, were chosen for sacrifice to the gods; such animals, unblemished on the outside and without deformities on the inside (especially among the vital organs) were also expected not to have been used by human beings, whether for milk or wool or work or in any other way. The sacrificial ritual itself began with the ceremonial pampering of the victim; the animal was adorned with wreaths of flowers and other vegetation and with ribbons of cloth, sprinkled with oil, water, wine, and sacred grain, and even sometimes perfumed. A quite ancient tradition called for the horns of very special victims to be wrapped in gold foil, as reflected in Homer’s tale about Old Nestor’s

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offering of a heifer to Athena during the visit to Pylos of Odysseus’ son Telemachus; the notion here was to delight the eyes of the goddess and demonstrate how much the participants valued this particular sacrifice. Overall, the fine treatment of the animal served to emphasize the respect Greeks had for the natural life force they were about to trade to the gods. Dressed appropriately for the occasion, individuals involved in the ceremony then walked along with the animal in a solemn procession to the place of sacrifice, whether a permanent or a portable altar; the victim was either led by the head (as in the tale of Nestor’s sons, who led their heifer by the horns) or lured by attendants with offers of grain. Hopefully, the parade came off without incident (because otherwise that would be seen as a bad omen). When the celebrants arrived at the altar, they cleansed their hands and sprinkled water on the animal’s head, making it nod in approval of its impending slaughter. Once again, the Greeks acknowledged their “partnership” with the victim, the need to receive permission from a fellow living thing. The offering of “first fruits” to the deity in the form of a cutting of the sacrificial victim’s hair, burning it on the altar, and sprinkling it with barley, brought the preliminaries of sacrifice to an end. Celebrants frequently stunned the sacrificial victim before slaughtering it, usually with a blow to the back of the head or neck with an axe. They followed this with a quick cutting of the animal’s throat to release a flow of blood over the altar or over a bowl that overflowed onto the altar. At this, the women in attendance cried out in a ritual shout of sorrow. Legend had it that the Titan god Prometheus, always looking out for human beings, instructed them (that is, the Greeks) in what to do with the animals sacrificed to the gods when Zeus once tried to force humans into starvation by demanding complete sacrifice of all their cattle. Across the centuries, from Homer to Euripides and beyond, the Greeks did follow the fairly standard method attributed to Prometheus. Celebrants removed and inspected the entrails of the animal and, if they proved unblemished, roasted them on skewers; those directly involved in the sacrifice (such as priests and their attendants) then ate from these while presiding over the rest of the ritual at the altar. This involved wrapping the nonedible portions of the carcass (especially the thigh bones and worst parts of the flesh) in glistening, pleasing-looking fat, pouring wine over them, adding incense, and burning all this on the altar, sometimes together with loaves of bread, as their offering for the gods to enjoy (apparently from the smoky smell). Variations abounded, as at Olympia in southern Greece, site of the most important shrine to Zeus, where priests burned the sacrificial meat with honey, then poured wine over it, and covered the sacrifice with incense and olive branches. Under special circumstances, an animal victim was sacrificed in a pit and completely burned; use of wine in such a ritual was considered improper.

Religion and Beliefs: Sacrifices

Unless a sacrifice had been conducted as an act of propitiation or purification, the celebrants and worshippers gathered for it engaged in a ritual feast together, sharing out the best meat and boiling it for themselves to consume rather than the gods (again as per the instructions of Prometheus). The Greeks seem to have considered all food at the sacrifice as sacred; for any of it, even the bones and ashes of the carcass, to leave the temenos, the precinct of the god, would thus have been highly improper. Evidence suggests, though, that whatever boiled meat from sacrifices was not eaten in the ritual feast might be officially distributed to the worshippers as something they could take home to eat. In honor of certain gods or heroes, especially for the god Apollo, the Greeks might keep the sacrificial victim intact and invite the supernatural beings to dine with them in a ritual called theoxenia, the ceremony of “divine hospitality.” Next to an outdoor dining table, a special couch would then be placed upon which the spiritual entities were thought to recline while enjoying the same “meal” with their human hosts. The gods apparently valued such courtesies and gestures just as much as ancient Greeks did among one another. The concept of human sacrifice was not unknown among the Greeks, but they regarded it as the uncivilized precursor to the sacrifice of animal victims in historical time. Such rituals, they thought, remained only the special habit of “barbarous” foreigners (like the Carthaginians, who engaged in child burial and crucifixion). Extant sources record only mythical instances of human sacrifice by deranged Greeks. For instance, they told the story of the attempted sacrifice of Phrixus and Helle, the children of King Athamas and Nephele, by the king’s second wife, the wicked Ino, who falsely claimed that Zeus Laphystios (a Boeotian version of the deity) demanded the children’s lives to bring an end to a severe drought. The mythical King Lykaon of Arcadia once sacrificed one of his own sons, Nyctimus, and served him in a banquet to Zeus, who punished the wicked father by turning him into a werewolf (hence, Zeus Lykaios, “Wolfy”). Tantalus of Phrygia stole ambrosia, the sacred food of the gods, from Mt. Olympus and then tried to appease the divine wrath by killing his own son, Pelops, as a sacrifice. In the horrifying story of King Pentheus of Thebes, his own mother (Agave, sister of Ino!) and other Bacchantes dismembered him alive in a fit of madness. Probably even more famous was the tale of Iphigenia, daughter of King Agamemnon of Mycenae and Queen Clytemnestra, whom the seer Calchas said had to be sacrificed at Aulis to placate the goddess Artemis and attain fair winds for the Greek armada to sail against Troy. In all these cases, the person or persons responsible for the human sacrifice faced dire consequences in the aftermath. Such stories, then, served as frightening warnings in Greek culture against the practice of human sacrifice. In some tales of Iphigenia, she was not, in fact, sacrificed, but rescued by the gods and transported safely elsewhere, to serve as a priestess or even as a

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manifestation of the goddess, and replaced by an animal for slaughter. This variant ending of her story reminds us of the actual Greek practice of substituting a pharmakos, an animal scapegoat, for the human victim; this took place, for instance, after a ritual ceremony of purification, when a selected person was paraded through the streets as a symbol of the community’s guilt and chased out of town and then an animal sacrificed in his or her place. Yet such occasions might see the actual execution of a criminal sentenced to capital punishment, what one might regard as a sort of human sacrifice. The Iphigenia traditions also record the substitution of an image of the princess in her place. This recalls the performance of mock sacrifices instead of real ones. For instance, Greek initiation rituals into adulthood for young men and young women sometimes included a period of seclusion that symbolized their death to the community in honor of a god who had, according to tradition, required actual human victims in the far past. Across the ancient Greek world, sacrifices were made on a range of significant occasions. Most commonly, Greeks made sacrifice when asking or looking for signs from the divine. They did so when confirming oaths (whether private or public), conducting ritual purifications (especially of celebrants), seeking the gods’ approval for engaging in battle, or attempting to avert or reverse divine wrath in the form of destruction or disaster. In such cases, the celebrants ate none of the animal, but disposed of it according to strict methods. Holocausts, in which entire victims were destroyed by fire, leaving none to be consumed by the worshippers or utilized in other ways, were rare sacrifices of high honor, paid especially to Zeus; a holocaust of a lamb or pig might take place, for instance, before offering one or more larger animals to him. Along the same lines, rituals of expiation (removing guilt) and for apotropaic purposes might involve the sacrifice of puppies or piglets, animals not typically offered, and in the case of the former, never eaten by Greeks; such sacrifices involved complete dedication of the carcass to the gods, often through holocaust. They would also make such offerings appropriate to the particular type of deity. For instance, instead of burning the victim when attempting to appease a river spirit or avert an expected storm at sea, they would simply throw the sacrifice into the waters. Since the ancient Greeks believed that sacrifices were appropriate to certain times of the year (like the wintertime offerings to Demeter Chloe, protectress of the green crops) and, as has been noted, to certain occasions, and since they had many gods to whom to sacrifice, such rituals kept Greek religion quite busy. Sacrifice also became for the Greeks their most heavily regulated religious activity, with each Greek community establishing all sorts of rules and laws to govern the various practices involved. Finally, since both humans and gods partook of most sacrifices, participating in the same meal together, sacrificial rituals served for the Greeks as a frequent means of communion with the divine.

Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves

See also: Family and Gender: Burial; Childbirth and Infancy; Childhood and Youth; Clans/Gene¯; Marriage; Weddings; Housing and Community: Furniture and Furnishings; Housing Architecture; Recreation and Social Customs: Festivals; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Chthonic Spirits; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Priests and Priestesses; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1983. Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth. Translated by P. Bing. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Translated by J. Raffan. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Dowden, K. 1989. Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology. London and New York: Routledge. Häag, R., ed. 1994. Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence. Stockholm: Svenska institutet i Athen. Häag, R., ed. 2005. Greek Sacrificial Ritual, Olympian and Chthonian. Stockholm: Svenska institutet i Athen. Hughes, D. 1991. Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge. Ogden, D., ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Van Straten, F. 1995. Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece. Leiden: Brill. Vernant, J.-P., and M. Detienne. 1989. The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Translated by P. Wissing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

SHRINES. See TEMPLES, SHRINES, AND SACRED GROVES TEMPLES, SHRINES, AND SACRED GROVES Sacred places were ubiquitous in the Greek world. There were so many, and they were so frequently encountered, that Greeks expected to happen upon them in their travels and counted on making prayers, libations, and even offerings or sacrifices to the spirits, whether great or small, inhabiting them. Over time, they formalized some of these places into sanctuaries (temenoi) and erected structures to mark their permanent religious significance. As far back as the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), the ancient Greeks recognized particular natural settings as spaces sacred to the gods, as places where their power (dynamis) was revealed to humans through some sort of epiphany (epiphaneia) or at least manifestation of what the Greeks called their “virtues” (aretai). As a sign of respect for the divine presence, the ancient Greeks either scrupulously stayed out of such places or restricted them for the practice of worship in its various forms.

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Not surprisingly, gods made their homes on mountains (ore¯); we know that the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures worshipped on mountaintops, such as at Mt. Ida. In later periods of their history, Greeks engaged in weather magic atop Mt. Lykaion, Mt. Laphystion, and Mt. Pelion; young men would dress in fresh ram fleeces and climb up to pray to Zeus Akraios for cool weather. The Muses (Mousai), a group of maiden goddesses particularly important for their inspiration of human culture, were said to make their homes in the mountains, such as on Mt. Helicon in central Greece. The significance of Mt. Olympus in northern Greece goes without saying. Many locales were populated by the female nature spirits known as nymphs (nymphai); at times dangerous to humans, at times helpful, nymphs lived in the mountains, in caves, pools, springs, groves, meadows, trees, and the seas. They were guardians especially of pure springs and rivers and were venerated particularly at caves (antra); Greeks were especially fond of dedicating offerings and artworks (paintings, carvings, and statuettes) at such nymphaea. Caves also had great significance in myth as the birthplace or hiding places of gods (like the cave on Mt. Dikte in which Zeus was born or the cave on Mt. Ida in which he was hidden away from his father Kronos) and as the haunts of Pan, the wilderness deity. Divinities were also said to inhabit partially wooded meadowlands (orgades), especially those that were well-watered and fertile; the hiera orgas between Megara and Athens was considered sacred to Demeter and Persephone, and not to be cultivated (which is what the Athenians under Pericles apparently accused the Megarians of doing in order to justify the Athenian decree against Megarian shipping in their territories). Sacred groves (alse¯, sing. alsos) included the famous Altis at Olympia, dedicated to Zeus and Hera, or the grove of oak trees (  phe¯goˉn) at Dodona, also special to Zeus. Laurel groves (daphnoˉnes) were considered sacred to Apollo, ivy groves (kissoˉnes) to Dionysus, the grove in the deme Colonus (a mile northwest of Athens) to the Eumenides, olive groves (elaioˉnes, kotinai) to Zeus and Athena. Myrtle groves (mursinoˉnes) held special place for Artemis, but in the Peloponnese, where locals worshipped her as if she were a sort of super-nymph, she was also associated with groves of willow (itea), cedar (kedros), and chestnut (kastanos). Poseidon also received special attention in sacred groves, such as the prominent one at Onchestus in Boeotia. Of course, more commonly, the Greeks associated him with places closer to the sea, like sacred beaches (aigialoi), the sites of many hermae and shrines dedicated to him. They also worshipped him in conjunction with sacred rivers (  potamoi), like the Acheloˉos in Aetolia, to which sacrifices were made in order to gain permission to use water or to cross; the Greeks imagined rivers as emerging from the cavernous underground by the efforts of Poseidon as the Earth-Shaker.

Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves

Many such natural settings remained just that—natural, untouched by the Greeks. Others witnessed the deposit of small tokens to mark their sacred character, like the piles of stones (hermae) placed along the byways (especially popular in Arcadia) to pay homage to Hermes, Pan, and Apollo Lykeios for their protection, or the hekataia, small triple-bodied statues of Hecate, located at crossroads where passersby threw little offerings to gain the assistance of the goddess in averting dangers. The veneration of heroes, demigods who possessed the power to help or hinder human endeavors, also often took place in such simple sacred spots, as at the stone in Troezen where Orestes was supposedly purified of blood guilt or the stone in Gythium where people said he had been cured of madness. The Greeks also erected more formal, though relatively simple structures, for the focus of devotion in natural settings. They built fountains (kre¯nai), for instance, at the sources of sacred waters, like the one near the top of Mt. Helicon called Hippokre¯ne¯ (created by the winged-horse Pegasus according to legend). They especially set up altars (boˉmoi). There were altars literally everywhere in the Greek world; in Athens, for instance, every deme had multiple altars and one could find altars all over the Greek countryside. No one person or group had a monopoly on performing what was needed to please the gods at an altar, making religious ritual, in a sense, the most “democratic” practice among the ancient Greeks. Along with offerings, libations, and sacrifices to “seal the deal,” the chief rituals at altars consisted of prayer and oath-taking, which occurred regularly and frequently in the Greek world. Greeks prayed for things that they wished for from the gods (such as safe harvests, fine children, military victory, and so on) and for things they hoped the gods would prevent (such as disease, foul weather, etc.); when they cursed people who had wronged them, they invoked the gods in a similar fashion to direct the wrath of the latter against the targeted ones. A Greek in prayer reminded the gods of all he or she had done for them or how well he or she had obeyed them, and he or she made promises about his or her behavior toward the gods in the future, especially about doing certain things for the gods (such as building them grand temples, for example). Greek prayers typically included precise phrases, often repetitive, delivered in a sort of singsong fashion, as well as particular gestures; a Greek stood while praying, for instance, raising his or her hands up to the Olympian gods and pointing his or her hands down toward the deities of the underworld. Oaths were taken in the presence of the gods, that is, near an altar or statue or at least within a sacred precinct, and sometimes involved a ritual sacrifice, in which the oath-swearer bathed his or her hand in the sanctified blood. Communal altars reached staggering proportions. The altar to Zeus at Olympia, for instance, consisting of ashes, fat, and bones from thousands of animals sacrificed over the generations, stood over eighteen feet high! The tyrant Hieron II of Syracuse erected an altar almost 600 feet in length; the Attalids of Pergamum

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lavishly decorated their Altar to Zeus with a frieze stretching some 330 feet around. Every formal sacred precinct centered on an altar, the space around it demarcated as a gathering place for worshippers by a cordon of horoi (marker posts). The existence of an altar made its location a shrine (thumele¯, naiskos); the geographer Strabo records the abundance of shrines in the area around Olympia, for instance, especially near groves dedicated to female deities there. The city-state of Athens particularly abounded in shrines to the gods. In the downtown area alone stood shrines to the Eumenides near the Areopagus, to Aphrodite Terracotta jar, or amphora, from Campania in and Eros, Pan, Apollo, and Demesouthern Italy depicting a woman making an offering ter and Persephone on the north before a flaming altar, fifth century BCE. Altars were side of the Acropolis, to Asclethe defining element of ancient Greek religion, the pius and Dionysus on the south focal point of almost all sacred ceremonies and places and so could be found in urban centers as slope. Southeast of the downwell as remote locations. (The Metropolitan Museum town area, there were shrines to of Art/Rogers Fund, 1906) Mother Earth, to Dionysus of the Marshes, to Pythian Apollo, and along the Ilissus River; to the east, Apollo Lyceus had his shrine. At Brauron, on the southeast coast of Attica, stood a sanctuary of Artemis. The Greeks also built shrines to honor their heroes, the demigods who occupied the space between humankind and the divine. Thus, the Spartans worshipped Menelaus and Helen, Agamemnon received a hero cult at Chaeronea, Clazomenae, Tarentum, and Mycenae, and the Athenians revered his son Orestes at an altar near the Areopagus and his daughter Iphigenia at Brauron. Pandrosus and Aglaurus, the daughters of legendary King Cecrops of Athens, had shrines on the Acropolis. The Trojan War hero Ajax had shrines on Salamis, in Attica, the Troad, and Byzantium, and even his own place reserved in the battle lines among the Locrians in southern Italy! Heracles received cult especially in central Greece, as well as at Argos, and

Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves

in Macedon, while his descendants, the Heraclidae, were worshipped in the demes of Attica. Families, associations, and communities worshipped their founders as heroes. So, the Spartans provided cult to the sixth-century sage Chilon as well as to their legendary lawgiver Lycurgus. Athenian phratries (mutual aid brotherhoods) had shrines to their founding heroes, and Plato established his philosophical school close to the shrine of the local hero Academus. The residents of Marathon worshipped the heroes Marathon and Echetlaeus, while the clan of the Salaminioi revered a set of heroes in the Sounion area. Greeks believed that heroes rose from slumber inside their tombs, which was why many hero shrines were constructed near them. Such tomb-bound cults depended on the presence of relics (leipsana), like the bones of Orestes (brought to Sparta from Tegea), or of Theseus (brought from Scyros to Athens), or of Melanippus (brought from Thebes to Sicyon), all of which were retrieved for the purpose of gaining the military “assistance” of the heroes for their new home. All over the Greek world one would have found lots of unnamed or vaguely identified tomb shrines. The living engaged in hero worship of these anonymous men and women, too, to keep their memory alive and to request favors of them. The Greeks often landscaped their temenoi, whether for gods or heroes, with gardens, especially with trees in circular or rectilinear patterns. The most extensively monumentalized temenoi were those that contained full-blown temples (hiera, naoi). There is no evidence for such structures among the Mycenaean Greeks (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE). Instead, archaeological and written remains from the Bronze Age show that the palace complexes or citadels of the Mycenaean rulers contained chambers in which the various gods of their pantheon received worship. In later eras of Greek history, temples and associated buildings came to dominate many temenoi, both inside and outside of city limits. For instance, the Athenians not only built temples to various divinities, especially Athena, on the Acropolis at the heart of their city-state, but also major temples to Demeter and Poseidon outside of town, at Eleusis and Sounion, respectively. A considerable complex of buildings developed around the temples to Zeus and Hera in the Altis at Olympia, dating back to at least the sixth century BCE and sight of the quadrennial Olympic festival and games; the sanctuary of the Muses not far from Thespiae, with its temple, altar, theater, and other structures, went up by at least the third century BCE. Greek colonies, such as those on the island of Sicily, tended to have more extra-urban temples than intra-urban. Regardless, the purpose for siting a temple was the same: it sat on sacred space cherished by one or more divine power(s). Temples became bustling centers of activity, with their staffs of priests (hiereis) or priestesses (hiereiai), cult officiants (hieropoioi), caretakers (naophylakes),

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purifiers (hieristai), treasurers (hierotamiai), cantors (hymnagorai), and so on, and, of course, worshippers (therapontes) engaged in ritual (threskeia). As at other sacred spaces, temple-focused rituals included hymns (hymnoi), prayers (arai), music (mousike¯), dancing (choreia), performances (dramata), processions (  pompai, pompeiai), sacrifices (thue¯, thusiai), shared banquets (daites, deipna), and libations (spondai). In almost all temples, only sacred personnel had regular permission to enter the building; worshippers gathered in the open space outside. Healing temples were the major exception, such as those dedicated to Asclepius, worshipped together with his father Apollo and his children Panacea and Hygeia. Suppliants of Asclepius could enter his temples to sleep, during which he would visit them in dreams and arrange for the cure of whatever ailed them. The cult of Asclepius emerged first in Thessaly and Messene; by the end of the fifth century BCE, epiphanies of the hero-god had caused the establishment of his “incubation” (enkoime¯sis) sanctuaries on Aegina and Cos, at Delphi, Sicyon, Pergamum, and Athens, and most famously at Epidaurus. Temples and their temenoi became places of artistic display in terms of reliefs, mosaics, paintings, and masterful cult statues (sometimes colossal, like the Athena in the Parthenon or the Zeus at Olympia); the latter watched through the open main doorway of their temples to witness the religious spectacle that took place outside. Greeks supported their temples and the activities that took place in and around them through various financial means. For example, the Athenians collected money each year from the members of their military alliance against the Persians, what we call the Delian League. The vast majority of those contributions were intended to fund the actions of the League, but one-sixtieth of the total phoros, what the Greeks called the aparche¯, or “first fruits,” was delivered to the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis. The Athenians utilized this portion of the monies to “placate” the goddess, protectress of the city and of the alliance, by maintaining her temple and its ceremonies. As depicted in the epic stories, and seen for generations afterward, the Greeks held their rituals always outdoors. Whether performed in prominent natural settings or in formal shrines with temples, whether a more intimate experience or a grand spectacle, whether conducted by private individuals or by public officials, such rituals dominated the calendar of every Greek person and every polis and such holy spaces dominated the Greek landscape. See also: Arts: Dance; Mosaics; Music; Painting, Walls/Panels; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Satyr Plays; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/ Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Family and Gender:

Religion and Beliefs: Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves

Men; Women; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Colonization; Household Religion; Palace Complexes, Bronze Age; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Olympic Games; Panathenaia; Panhellenic Games; Theaters; Religion and Beliefs: Asylum; Chthonic Spirits; Eleusinian Mysteries; Libations and Offerings; Myths and Heroes; Olympian Gods; Oracles; Priests and Priestesses; Sacrifices FURTHER READING Alcock, S. and R. Osborne, eds. 1994. Placing the Gods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bergquist, B. 1967. The Archaic Greek Temenos. Amsterdam: Gleerup. Burkert, W. 1983. Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth. Translated by P. Bing. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Translated by J. Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Buxton, R. 1994. Imaginary Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dowden, K. 1989. Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology. London and New York: Routledge. Edlund, I. E. M. 1987. The Gods and the Place. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Rom. Häag, R., ed. 2005. Greek Sacrificial Ritual, Olympian and Chthonian. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen. Johnston, S.  I. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kearns, E. 1989. The Heroes of Attica. London: Institute of Classical Studies. Marinatos, N., and R. Häag, eds. 1993. Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. London and New York: Routledge. Ogden, D., ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Pedley, J. 2005. Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pulleyn, S. 1997. Prayer in Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rutkowski, B. 1986. The Cult Places of the Aegean. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Tomlinson, R. A. 1976. Greek Sanctuaries. London: Elek. Travlos, J. 1980. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. London: Hacker Art Books.

UNDERWORLD. See AFTERLIFE/UNDERWORLD

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INTRODUCTION The ancient Greeks made it almost a cultural habit of theirs to learn about their world and to understand its workings. Even poets, playwrights, and historians revealed an interest in and knowledge of the natural and life sciences. No wonder, then, that so many modern scientific terms and the names of scientific fields of study have their origin in the ancient Greek language. Learning much from their neighbors in the Ancient Near East, the Greeks developed their own sciences of astronomy, geometry, mathematics, and medicine and invented new fields of study, like botany, geography, physics, and zoology. They experimented with new techniques to improve navigation and shipbuilding and new technologies to create machines of all sorts. The Greeks also learned to record and share their findings through methods of education, through writing (especially treatises, encyclopedias, and manuals), and through libraries that permitted a collective scientific and technological memory for generations of people. Ancient Greeks applied their scientific knowledge to the solution of practical problems, but they enjoyed even more speculating on the nature of the cosmos, and they did so more widely than any other culture they knew. The creation in Hellenistic times of the Library and Museum of Alexandria by the Ptolemaic dynasty, at once a repository of established knowledge and an institute for the furthering of human understanding, certainly epitomizes the Greek devotion to learning in all its forms, especially in terms of science and technology.

ALPHABET The development of a truly phonetic alphabet, adaptable to any language and widely learnable, stands as one of the most significant achievements from the 785

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world of the ancient Greeks. Today’s world continues to benefit from that achievement, and for the ancient Greeks themselves it contributed immensely to the flourishing of their culture. The oldest known form of writing in the Greek language, which archaeologists have labeled Linear B, fell out of use sometime after the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, that is, after 1200 BCE. For centuries afterward, there is no evidence of any system of writing in the Greek world; this does not conclusively prove that there was no form of writing in those days, but, if there was, it did not survive on any durable materials, such as pottery or stone. The next time we see the Greek language in written form is on an oenochoe, a clay pot used for storing wine. Discovered in 1871 outside the ancient Dipylon Gate of Athens, and dated to sometime between 740 and 725 BCE, the so-called Dipylon Inscription on this object consists of letters recognizable to any student of Greek today (although some are inscribed backwards), as well as signs belonging to the alphabet used by the Phoenicians, the inhabitants of ancient Lebanon. In the second millennium BCE, West Semitic populations in Syria and Lebanon, ancient “cousins” of modern-day Jews and Arabs, experimented with the creation of a writing system in which each separate letter represented a consonant sound; in this way, they simplified writing dramatically, in comparison with the system widespread in the region of the Middle East in those days, Mesopotamian cuneiform, as well as Egyptian hieroglyphs. Instead of having to memorize hundreds of complex cuneiform or hieroglyphic symbols that represented not only sounds but also things, places, or people, the new alphabets, for example, from Ugarit or Phoenicia, required the learning of only twenty to thirty signs, again each associated with a sound spoken in the Semitic languages. Certainly by the ninth century BCE, use of the Phoenician alphabet was widespread around the Mediterranean and in the western portions of the Ancient Near East; the island of Crete, for instance, has yielded artifacts with Phoenician letters on them, dating to about 900 BCE. During the first half of the eighth century BCE, Greek travelers in the ancient Levant, merchants, mercenaries, or simple adventurers, likely bilingual by that point, had learned the West Semitic system of writing, brought it back to their homeland, and introduced it to the communities of Greece, where it was further adapted to suit their linguistic needs. They evidently recognized its usefulness, though we know of no specific reason as to why. Whoever these mysterious Greek “linguists” may have been, they retained the names for many of the Semitic letters, but they substituted what we would call vowel sounds for some of the original consonants. Thus, the letter “bet” became “beta” and retained its consonantal sound, whereas the letter “alif” became “alpha” and took on a vowel sound. They also established a firm linkage between writing a vowel along with any consonant used. The alphabet among the Greeks then

Science and Technology: Alphabet

underwent an evolutionary process, as most symbols experienced some modification in shape or orientation, some symbols were eventually dropped altogether, and brand new symbols were created. This process of alphabetic change was not uniform across the Greek territories but instead varied, resulting in multiple, local Greek alphabets. Despite the local variations, the new alphabet in general appears to have taken off rapidly among all the Greek populations across the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas after its adoption during the course of the eighth century BCE; the archaeological record of the following century is already loaded with samples of Greenstone polyhedron inscribed with letters of writing in the new system. Dur- the Greek alphabet, c. second to first century BCE. Such an object may have been used as an ing the fifth and fourth centuries instructional aid for Greek children learning their BCE, many Greeks (including ABCs or as part of a game involving counters, dice, the Athenians near the end of the knucklebones, and so on (as in modern board games). (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Fletcher fifth century) abandoned their Fund, 1927) local alphabets in favor of the Ionic version, that is, the one developed by the Greeks living in Ionia (western Turkey), which is familiar today to any student of the Greek language, ancient or modern. The Ionian Greeks, indeed, stood at the forefront of the new writing system, having already employed their version of it to preserve the poetry of Homer, the speculations of their scientists, the intercultural experiences of their logographers, and the musings of their poets. Since writings in Ionic Greek became standard reading among all Greeks, wherever they might live, it is little wonder that the Ionic alphabet came to displace most of its “competitors” across the Greek world. The Greek alphabet came to be widely utilized on many sorts of objects and in many contexts (the abundant evidence from democratic Athens serving as the most telling examples), which suggests that its few phonetic letters, so clearly representative of the spoken sounds of the Greek language, permitted relatively easy and fairly wide literacy among most ancient Greeks, especially from the Archaic Period

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(c. 800–490 BCE) onward, and all this certainly indicates that the use of a written language received popular support within the Greek communities. The alphabet gave the Greeks a new way of preserving and refining their ideas, a means not only of recording their heroic tales, religious rituals, honored dead, historical traditions, theatrical performances, philosophical speculations, scientific discoveries, even mundane details of law, government, and the economy, but also of critically reflecting upon them, researching them, and modifying them over time and across space. Greeks did not completely abandon the essential orality of their society (in fact, many communities only reluctantly embraced official written record-keeping, some refusing to do so at all), but immensely supplemented and altered that orality with a written culture to pass on to future generations. After the Dark Age that had followed the collapse of Mycenaean society, the adoption of a new alphabet in no small part thus allowed the experience of a true rebirth for Greek civilization. In this regard, it is not insignificant that the oldest known Greek inscription in one of the prototypes of this new alphabet, the Dipylon Inscription noted above, is, in fact, a piece of poetic verse on a prize wine jug, apparently created and inscribed to commemorate a celebratory atmosphere; though only fragmentary, it reads: “Whoever of all these dancers now plays most delicately, to him this . . . ,” presumably indicating that the wine jug would be the successful dancer’s reward. See also: Science and Technology: Education; Greek Language Groups; Inscriptions; Libraries and Literacy; Linear A and Linear B FURTHER READING Daniels, P. T., and W. Bright. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Easterling, P., and C. Handley, eds. 2001. Greek Scripts. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Finnegan, R. 1988. Literacy and Orality: Studies in the Technology of Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Goody, J. 1987. The Interface between the Oral and the Written. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, W. V. 1989. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jeffery, L. H. 1961. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ong, W. J. 1982. Orality and Literacy. London: Methuen. Powell, B. B. 1991. Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sass, B. 2005. The Alphabet at the Turn of the Millennium: The West Semitic Alphabet, ca. 1150–850 BCE: The Antiquity of the Arabian, Greek, and Phrygian Alphabets. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. Thomas, R. 1992. Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Science and Technology: Artificial Power

ARTIFICIAL POWER The ancient Greeks pioneered methods of artificial power that inspired the laborsaving technologies of the modern world. They learned to harness the power of water, steam, air, and to a lesser extent wind, as substitutes for human and animal power and created new branches of physical science along the way. As early as the fourth century BCE, the ancients turned the power of water to human use by means of waterwheels. Constructed of wood and metal in a variety of sizes, these devices were usually placed upright along the edge of a river whose flow moved the wheel by pushing paddles attached to its rims. Often, the space between the outer rims of these waterwheels was equipped with compartmented troughs that filled up with water as they dipped into the river; as the force of the water spun the wheel, or tympanon, around, these troughs lifted up and out, like the seats of a Ferris wheel, and the water contained in them could then be drained off onto the surrounding land. The rotary motion of a waterwheel could also be imparted to other machines through various forms of gearing. Hence, water mills for the processing of grain into flour emerged in the third century BCE and proliferated across the Greek and Roman worlds by the first century CE. Perhaps invented in the river valleys of western Asia Minor, Greek water mills developed in two types. In one version, an upright paddle wheel was rotated by means of river currents, like the one described above, and its axle transferred the rotary motion via toothed cogs at its end (perhaps developed in the third century BCE in Alexandria) to one or more lantern pinions or cogwheels that then spun a vertical rod; this rod passed upward through the bed stone (lower millstone) where it attached to and rotated the runner (upper millstone), which then did the work of grinding. From at least the third century BCE, the Greeks also understood how to convert such rotating motion to linear motion by means of a cam on an axle, and they also knew how to take advantage of flowing water at elevation higher than the mill structure by channeling the water to flow overshot onto the vertical waterwheel. In the other typical version of a Greek water mill, underneath the mill structure sat a horizontal, bladed waterwheel, either submerged in a river or stream, and thus turned by its fast moving currents, or near enough to a water source which could be diverted into chutes that ejected the water down onto the slanted blades to propel them. A vertical axle reaching up from the center of the waterwheel passed through the mill machinery to attach to the runner; as the wheel turned, so did the axle, and thereby so did the upper millstone to do its grinding work. By at least the first century BCE, the ancient Greeks applied this waterwheel technology to all sorts of other machinery. For instance, right-angle or cam-shaft gearing like that attached to upright waterwheels could be employed not just to turn

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grinding stones but also to open and close bellows connected to metal-­refining furnaces, to lift and drop trip-hammers in ore-crushing facilities and fulling troughs, to spin paddle-rods inside a tall tub and thereby knead bread dough, and so on. By at least the third century CE, they were attaching frame saws to their complex gearing from waterwheels, the saw blades pushed forward and backward just like the connecting rods on the wheels of a steam-engine locomotive. In the third century BCE, three Greek scientists, Ctesibius of Alexandria, Philo of Byzantium, and Apollonius of Perga, all of whom understood the essential principles of pneumatics (the mechanical properties of gases), experimented with compressed air and steam as sources of artificial power. The force pump developed by Ctesibius, for example, employed a pair of pistons to create a vacuum into which water was first drawn (from a river or lake) and then pushed out, under the pressure of forced air, through a tube or nozzle wherever one wished the water to go. Similarly, his hydraulis, or water organ, relied on a constant supply of water to pressurize the air within the organ’s central chamber; the operator of the instrument channeled that compressed air into pipes by means of keys (attached to hidden control valves), thereby producing musical tones. Although neither of these devices might be regarded as artificially powered, since they required human action (pushing down on the pistons or the musical keys) to get them going, they were certainly designed to be able to function on their own, once provided with a relatively small motive force from a nonhuman source. Philo of Byzantium and Apollonius of Perga provided just that when they put Ctesibius’ technologies to use in ingenious ways. Philo designed a puppet theater in which the figures moved on their own (they were automata, “self-acting devices”) in a variety of poses, such as a toy carpenter who raised and lowered his hammer; the motive forces were provided by a system of self-balancing weights and counterweights (similar to those in medieval clock towers) as well as c­ ompressed-air camshafts, all hidden from the spectator’s view. Apollonius constructed a similarly artificially powered mechanical flute player. In this case, a waterwheel drove the axles and camshafts that opened and closed the valves in the pistons of the machine to send water into its pressure chamber, out of which moved the compressed air within the system that, properly channeled, created the movement and the musical tones of the automaton. In the first century CE, Heron of Alexandria, who, like the scholars noted above, wrote on the science of pneumatics, compiled their theories, discoveries, and experiments together with his own into masterful reference volumes on the subject of artificial power. He, too, constructed self-operating mechanical puppet theaters (especially a quartet of mechanical blacksmiths) to demonstrate his principles, which again utilized counterbalancing weights and air compressed by water to generate repetitive, motive forces. Heron also described devices motivated by means of

Science and Technology: Artificial Power

hot air and steam. For instance, lighting a fire on an altar outside a temple generated heat that was channeled into a conduit leading to a tank of water; the expanding air in the conduit pushed the water out and into a sort of hanging bucket. As the bucket became heavier from the weight of the water, it dropped toward the ground, and the system of pulleys or arms to which it was attached pulled open the doors of the temple, as if by magic. In another example, fire was used to heat a tank of water; as it produced steam, the latter was channeled carefully into a pipe at the end of which was a metal ball. The steam entered the ball and then escaped through exhaust tubes on opposite sides of it, thereby causing the ball to spin in continuous motion. Heron had thus demonstrated the basic principles behind the modern steam engine. Heron even discussed the application of wind power to his own devices and those of his predecessors. He explained how the vanes of a wheel driven by strong winds could be geared up to motivate camshafts that, in turn, would move force pumps up and down inside a musical organ; the force pumps would then create the air pressure required inside the organ, which would be released into the musical pipes, as usual, through manipulation of the keyboard valves. There remains uncertainty, however, about the precise design of this windwheel or if one was ever constructed by Heron or anyone else in ancient times. Although the use of wind power in their world seems to have remained limited to the propulsion of ships by sail, certainly the ancient Greeks understood the power of natural forces, such as wind, water, air, and steam, and the benefit of applying such forces to the needs of human society. The devices they developed utilizing the power of water, steam, and compressed air not only helped the Greeks to revolutionize their scientific concepts (especially in physics) but were also turned by them to practical applications in irrigating their fields, processing their food, draining their mines, and entertaining their citizens. Their successors, the Romans and the Byzantines, would reap even greater benefits from Greek innovations in artificial power. See also: Economics and Work: Metal-Refining; Mining; Food and Drink: Grains; Olives and Olive Oil; Wine; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Science and Technology: Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy; Navigation; Physics; Ships/Shipbuilding; Time-Reckoning; Vehicles FURTHER READING Camp, J. McK. 1984. Ancient Athenian Building Methods. Athens: American School of Classical Studies. Coulton, J. J. 1977. Ancient Greek Architects at Work. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill.

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The World of Ancient Greece Drachmann, A. G. 1948. Ktesibios, Philon and Heron: A Study in Ancient Pneumatics. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Drachmann, A.  G. 1963. The Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Hodges, H. W. M 1970. Technology in the Ancient World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Landels, J. P. 2000. Engineering in the Ancient World. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lewis, M. J. T. 1997. Millstone and Hammer: The Origins of Waterpower. Hull, U.K.: University of Hull Press. Lucas, A. 2006. Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology. Leiden: Brill. Moritz, L. A. 1958. Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Oleson, J. P. 1984. Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, K. D. 1984. Greek and Roman Technology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wikander, Ö, ed. 2000. Handbook of Ancient Water Technology. Leiden: Brill.

ASTRONOMY The Greeks referred to the science of studying the heavens as astrologia, that is, “study of the stars,” until the followers of the philosopher Plato substituted a different term, astronomia, “law of the stars,” which gained currency across the Greek territories. In their version of this science, the Greeks built on their own mythology and on the knowledge they acquired from the older cultures to the south and east of the Aegean basin, especially the Babylonians. As many modern people are aware, the ancient Egyptians had a fascination with the night sky and an excellent understanding of stellar movements, which they utilized in the construction and alignment of their grand buildings, such as the pyramids. Egyptian astronomers, who were probably priests, apparently had little interest in planetary motions, though, and their focus in charting or predicting the movements of any of the heavenly bodies had to do primarily with religious matters, including the soul’s journey to the heavens after death. Astronomers in the Ancient Near East, especially in the city of Babylon, again a limited set of practitioners likely employed by the temples of the region, sought to record the repeating patterns of the Sun, Moon, and five planets then known (which we call after the Roman names Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). Their extensive nightly observations over the centuries appeared in various media, including astronomical diaries and almanacs, providing fairly precise data on eclipses, risings and settings of stars, timing of equinoxes, locating of planets in particular “houses” of

Science and Technology: Astronomy

the Zodiac, and so on, and allowing fairly accurate predictions of future celestial events, all of which were associated with divine powers. Among the Greeks, astronomical study spread beyond religious personnel to be taken up especially by scholars, first and foremost the cosmologists of the sixth century BCE. Among these thinkers, Anaximander of Miletus followed in the train of those who came before him, whether in Greece, Egypt, or Mesopotamia, in believing that the earth was flat, and he speculated that it was a flat disc three times as wide as it was thick. Unlike his predecessors, however, he speculated that opposing and symmetrical forces kept the earth disc balanced within a globe of atmosphere. Thus, Anaximander is the earliest recorded thinker to have hypothesized on the existence of something along the lines of gravitational forces. In order to explain the movements of the heavenly bodies, as well as the waxing and waning of the Moon and eclipses of the Sun, he speculated that the atmosphere of the earth must be surrounded by huge bands of fire (this was, he thought, the substance of the heavenly bodies) that appear to us only through holes in the atmospheric globe; they, thus, seem to be the round objects of the Sun, Moon, stars, and so on, but, in fact, that is only the glimpse we get of their true nature. This speculation is especially fascinating considering our knowledge today of magnetic belts of energy surrounding our planet like a force field. Not long after Anaximander, another cosmologist, Pythagoras, defined his theory of astronomy. He speculated, based on mathematical observations, that the Earth was, in fact, a spherical body, not a flat disk; he was the first recorded author to express such an idea, and by the fifth century BCE, it had pretty well taken hold among the educated throughout the Greek world. A follower of Pythagoras in that era, Philolaus of Croton, further surmised that the spherical Earth rotates about an axis and revolves around a “central fire,” as do the five similarly spherical planets (so-called from the Greek word for “wandering” from the phrase “wandering stars” and named Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus, and Cronus by the Greeks), the Sun (Helios), Moon (Selene), and fixed stars. Philolaus also presumed that there must be an unseen tenth body, the Counter-Earth, in addition to these celestial objects, perhaps derived from his belief in the perfectness of the number ten and its essential relation to the perfectness of the cosmos (by which Pythagoras had meant the universe), perhaps derived from the perceived need for balance in a universe where only the Earth had substantial mass (all other heavenly bodies being considered some sort of aether, a purer form of air). Furthermore, the revolving celestial bodies were believed to follow perfect spherical orbits, concentric circles around the “central fire,” that produce a harmonious “music of the spheres,” as Pythagoras described it, sensed by humans who are attuned to it, but unnoticed by all others.

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Philolaus’ century and the next witnessed other philosophers engaging in astronomical discussion. A slightly older contemporary of his, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, for example, speculated on the origin of the universe, apparently arguing that a supreme rational force, nous, or mind itself, applied its powers to the jumble of disorder that was existence, creating out of that the ordered, rational cosmos we see around us. He also referred to the Sun not as an object of aether but as an “incandescent stone,” a solid object, not unlike the Earth, yet emitting some sort of energy. The young Plato recorded the effect of Anaxagoras’ teachings on his own mentor, Socrates, and clearly they had an impact on him as well. When Plato himself turned to astronomy, he gave it a further metaphysical meaning with his notions of the Universal Mind and World Soul, all the spheres of the cosmos moving in mathematical harmony and perfection, a model for humans to follow. One of his pupils, Eudoxus of Cnidus, developed a complex and complicated system of spheres to explain the apparent paths of the Sun, Moon, and planets, their motions, speed, relation to the Zodiac constellations (the Zodiac became a point of reference for Greek astronomers from then on), and the apparent disappearance of heavenly bodies with the rising of the Sun. His pupil, Callippus of Cyzicus, further refined these studies to account for errors and discrepancies. Plato’s most famous pupil, the philosopher Aristotle, worked with both Eudoxus and Callippus, and attempted to synthesize the various astronomical theories to date. In this cosmos of ethereal (that is, aether-made) stars, planets, and celestial spheres, the heavy, spherical Earth sits at the center, like a weight or anchor, while the rest of the cosmos rotates around it. Indeed, fifty-five spheres surround and rotate about the Earth and explain the visible phenomena of the universe, according to Aristotle. Unlike the Earth, the heavenly bodies and spheres possess intelligence, a manifestation of the ultimate intelligence, the vague Prime Unmoved Mover, which sets the whole cosmos in motion. In Hellenistic times, perhaps the most famous of all ancient Greek astronomers were Aristarchus of Samos (early third century BCE) and Hipparchus of Nicaea (mid-second century BCE). By their lifetimes, Greek scholars had full access to Babylonian astronomical data, which they put to good use. Aristarchus challenged himself to attempt calculations of, or at least speculations about, how the size of the Moon compares to the size of the Sun and also how their distances from the Earth compare with one another. He utilized the eclipses of the Moon to calculate its distance from Earth, a calculation which was refined to still greater accuracy by the second century CE. Furthermore, taking off from the earlier notions of Anaximander, Pythagoras, and Philolaus, Aristarchus proposed that the Earth’s sphere actually revolved around the Sun (though his determination of the Sun’s distance from Earth was far too small), as did all the

Science and Technology: Astronomy

other spheres of the visible universe, with the stars we see at night holding their positions firmly in an unmoving sphere beyond all others, especially well beyond our own. Plugging into the deep tradition of celestial observation coming out of Babylon, Hipparchus established much of the foundation for later astronomers in the Greek and Roman worlds from his base of operations on the island of Rhodes, a principal intellectual center with ties to the Middle East and Alexandria in Egypt. He studied the speed of the Sun and the Moon, as well as the phases of the Moon and its distance from the Earth, and seems to have been the first to identify the precession of the equinoxes (though Aristarchus may have done so already). In contrast to Aristarchus, Hipparchus defended a geocentric theory of the cosmos and attempted to explain oddities in the motions of the Sun and the Moon through his theory of epicycles (an idea first developed by Apollonius of Perga in which the heavenly bodies move in counterclockwise motion along small circular orbits attached to larger circular orbits that actually revolve around the Earth, like a small wheel spinning while attached to a larger wheel spinning). Greek astronomical studies and speculation, as well as Babylonian and Egyptian, found their culmination in the work of Claudius Ptolemy in the second century CE, a scholar at the Museum and Library of Alexandria, especially in his Syntaxis (known commonly from the Arabic title Almagest). Combining his own observations and calculations over a period of fourteen years, he mathematically analyzed previous theories and models. Building upon Aristotle’s emphasis on perfect circular motion in the cosmos and especially on the studies of Hipparchus, Ptolemy then constructed a model of his own in which the “imperfect” Earth, at rest, stood at the center of everything “perfect” and “eternal” (and, therefore, capable of prediction, as seen in his astronomical tables), the Sun revolving around the Earth in a circular motion slightly off-center (to explain disparities in the equinoxes), passing through the constellations of the Zodiac in one year’s time, with the Moon revolving around the Earth in an epicyclic orbit (to account for apparent speed disparities), and the whole sphere of the cosmos rotating around the Earth in one day and one night. To explain the apparent retrograde motion of the five planets and other of their anomalies, he posited that, like the Sun, they follow eccentric orbits and, like the Moon, move along epicycles; Ptolemy also attempted to calculate the distances of the planets from Earth, firmly ordering the heavenly bodies in the sequence Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The stars he viewed as fixed in relation to one another and in relation to the Earth (to which they are far too close according to modern science, about 20,000 Earth radiuses away), except that they slowly revolve around the Earth. Ptolemy, indeed, plotted the coordinates of forty-eight constellations (many of which had been named by the Greeks in the fourth century BCE) and over a thousand stars (not many of which had been named even by his time),

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and developed a system to catalog their magnitudes. Ptolemy’s observations, when viewed from Earth, achieve fair accuracy and, when adjusted to heliocentric realities, can still do so. Astronomical knowledge permeated ancient Greek society in a variety of ways. It found popular expression in the epic poetry of Homer and Hesiod in the eighth century BCE, and in the third century BCE, Aratus of Cilicia, court poet and scholar to the Macedonian dynasty, turned the sophisticated theories of Eudoxus and others into celebrated and well-known poetry. Philosophy also never ceased to intertwine with astronomy. Even in the early second century CE, for instance, Theon of Smyrna followed in the line of Plato’s teachings and devoted an introductory treatise to those scientific fields, including astronomy, which he considered useful in the understanding of Plato’s ideas. Astronomers themselves were intimately connected with the production of parapegmata, calendars that tracked weather phenomena as well as celestial phenomena and attempted to correlate them with civil/societal calendars in written form and inscribed on slabs of stone placed in public locations for all to observe the marking of time and space (using movable pegs!). Finally, the artist who sculpted the constellations on the Farnese Globe atop the Farnese Atlas (second century CE copy of a probable third century BCE original) clearly understood a thing or two about Greek astronomical models. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Calendars; Cosmology; Experimentation and Research; Geometry; Libraries and Literacy; Mathematics and Numeracy; Navigation; Physics; Time-Reckoning FURTHER READING Aaboe, A. 2001. Episodes from the Early History of Astronomy. New York: Springer. Barnes, J. 1987. Early Greek Philosophy. London and New York: Penguin. Cornford, F. M. 1997. Plato’s Cosmology. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Couprie, D. L., R. Hahn, and G. Naddaf. 2003. Anaximander in Context. Albany: SUNY Press. Cuomo, S. 2000. Pappus of Alexandria and the Mathematics of Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Curd, P. 2007. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Evans, J. 1998. The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Evans, J., and J. L. Berggren. 2006. Geminos’s Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Survey of Astronomy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Guthrie, W. K. C. 1985. A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 1: The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Science and Technology: Biology Heath, T. L. 1913. Aristarchus of Samos: The Ancient Copernicus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huffman, C. 1993. Philolaos of Croton: Pythagorean and Presocratic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johansen, T. K. 2004. Plato’s Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kidd, D., ed. and trans. 1997. Aratus: Phaenomena. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield. 1995. The Presocratic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lehoux, D. 2007. Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neugebauer, O. 1975. A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Berlin and New York: Springer. Pedersen, O. 1974. A Survey of the “Almagest.” Berlin and New York: Springer. Solmsen, F. 1960. Aristotle’s System of the Physical World: A Comparison with His Predecessors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Thurston, H. 1994. Early Astronomy. New York and Berlin: Springer. Toomer, G. J., trans. 1984. Ptolemy’s Almagest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tuplin, C. J., and T. E. Rihll, eds. 2002. Science and Mathematics in Ancient Greek Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

BIOLOGY Among the earliest Greek thinkers in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), the study of living things attracted very little attention; these natural philosophers were cosmologists primarily, interested (as their predecessors in the cultures of the Ancient Near East had been) in understanding the substance and functioning of the physical universe, especially the heavens and their relation to the Earth. The theories of one of these cosmologists, Anaximander of Miletus, did, however, spark an abiding interest in biology among later Greeks, principally in the subdisciplines modern biology would identify as anatomy, biogeography, biomechanics, biophysics, ecology, developmental biology, and physiology. In the sixth century BCE, Anaximander introduced the theory of evolution before anyone else in recorded history. During his investigations of the natural world along the eastern shores of the Aegean Sea, he had clearly observed fossils of marine species that no longer existed in his own day. Anaximander, no doubt inspired by these observations and by the teachings of his mentor Thales (who had asserted that all existence came from water), then speculated that life originated in the sea and that the earliest land animals had come out from the sea as embryonic creatures that were encased in husks covered in thorny protrusions. He further

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speculated that some of these creatures that had come onto the land must have evolved eventually into all the known species of animals, including humans. Natural philosophers continued to focus on the origins of life in the following century. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, for example, argued that the sperm of male animals, including humans, contained basic bits of flesh, bone, hair, and so on, all the elements of our fully matured bodies, only in miniature. He asserted that all things in the universe contain within themselves the building blocks of other things, these building blocks having been set in order by the cosmic force of mind itself which thereby distinguished the seemingly separate objects and life forms that we see around us. This cosmic mind (nous), though it “cares” about all existence and is intimately involved with all existence, nevertheless is “pure” when compared to the “composite” and “fragile” items of matter, including living things, which it has animated. Anaxagoras further postulated that life forms on Earth emerged from mud fertilized by building-block elements that had entered it from the aether (purer, celestial air) and the air. Empedocles of Akragas, meanwhile, developed his quasi-Darwinistic theory of the gradual emergence of life in stages of perfection out of what he identified as the four “roots” or elements of existence (air, fire, water, and earth). For Empedocles, life forms came into existence randomly through the interaction of elements under the competing forces of “love” and “strife,” that is, attraction or combination and repulsion or dissolution. He went so far as to assert that body parts, like limbs, came into being in this random way before some of them combined over time into whole creatures that could survive best in the harsh circumstances of the world. In terms of human biology, Empedocles considered blood to be a compound of all four elements in equal balance and speculated on such things as the cause of vision (the element of “fire” within our eyes moving outward to touch the subject seen) and of our sensations (the elements in things outside ourselves giving off some of their substance which travels through pores in our bodies to cause reactions among similar elements within us). Empedocles’ theory of the four roots of existence inspired the humoral theory among Greek doctors of a generation or so later in which four humors (chymoi, blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm) permeated the human organism, giving it health when in balance and causing illness when out of balance. Practitioners of Greek medicine, then, especially those on the island of Cos, home of the famous Hippocrates and his school, maintained a basic interest in biology, at least as it pertained to their work. The biological subfield of anatomy received a push from Alcmaeon of Croton. He disputed the assertion of Empedocles (and others) that the heart functioned as the center of the human organism; instead, Alcmaeon maintained the brain served

Science and Technology: Biology

this purpose, placing the human brain’s capacity for thought as the most important biological distinction between humans and animals. He did agree with Empedocles that sensations were communicated from the outside world by means of channels or pores in the body, but he maintained that these led to and from the brain. Alcmaeon appears to have arrived at his conclusions through performing dissections and perhaps some form of vivisections, on animals rather than humans (most likely), since there were strong taboos in ancient Greek society against the purposeful cutting open of human bodies (except in warfare, of course). In the following century, Greek scholars had enough information on animal anatomy that Diocles of Carystus could publish an entire book, the first of its kind, just on that one subject. Diocles’ slightly older contemporary, the philosopher Aristotle, made the most lasting mark on biological science in the Greek world. In at least six works, he established biology as more or less a distinct field of study. Like Empedocles, who had identified the existence and common function of “eggs” across many different species of living things, Aristotle gave attention to the biological processes that existed across species, such as transmission of traits from generation to generation or the changes that take place within an organism to convert food into fuel, and so on. He learned much about structure, function, and process from dissecting animals (most famously baby chicks developing within their eggs), and perhaps even made observations of human fetuses. He reached a wide range of conclusions, some very accurate (as that all blood vessels in the body come from the heart and “irrigate” the body like water in a garden), some erroneous but in line with previous thought (as that the heart is the center of sense perceptions because all sensation is somehow linked to the blood vessels), and some based on false assumptions (as that sperm primarily determines the traits of offspring). In the end, Aristotle’s extensive research, especially in marine biology, rigorous systematization of findings and determined search for causes set the standards and the parameters of biological investigation for all future generations of ancient Greeks. In the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) that followed, two figures picked up where Aristotle left off in terms of biological research, Herophilus and Erasistratus. Both practiced dissections on animals, but, more controversially, they seem to have done so also with human subjects; indeed, the ancient tradition records that they also engaged in vivisection of humans. As a result of their studies, they made important contributions to biological knowledge. For example, Herophilus had been taught by Praxagoras of Cos (another important figure in biology in the generation after Aristotle who had also likely dissected animals) that the brain was simply an extension of the spinal cord, but his own investigations of the differences between the cerebrum and the cerebellum of the brain, his detailed dissections of its ventricles and of the eye and optic nerve, and his probing studies of

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the functioning of the nerves in general (which first demonstrated that some were sensory and others motor neurons) convinced him that, in fact, the brain is the complex control center of the body, not the heart. Indeed, Herophilus was the first Greek scientist to really analyze the organ of the heart and to truly detail the differences between the arteries and the veins. Again, he was inspired in these investigations by his mentor; Praxagoras had proposed that the arteries spread pneuma, the breath of life, while the veins carried blood, something which a number of Greek scholars believed came from the liver as a product of digestion. Despite his own studies of the intestines and the liver, Herophilus improved on this theory only slightly, by showing that the arteries, too, carried blood, but blood rich in pneuma. Erasistratus, meanwhile, pushed the Greek understanding of the cardiovascular system further with his research into the pumping mechanism of the heart, the functioning of its valves as a backflow apparatus, and so on. Still, he found himself wedded to the old idea that the arteries carried pneuma alone, which, he asserted, traveled, once inhaled, from the lungs to the heart, where the pneuma was altered, then to the brain, where it was altered again, and then on to the nerves and other tissues of the body to give them “life.” Herophilus and Erasistratus had brought a more mechanistic view to the physiological side of biology, especially animal and human, making great advances with their literally more “hands-on” approach. Yet biology as a field of endeavor still did not seem to pique the interest of Greek scientists, even physicians. For centuries, they turned their attention in other directions, until the revival of biology, especially anatomy, with Marinus of Alexandria and Galen of Pergamum in the second century CE. Galen, perhaps the most famous physician of all Greek and Roman history (with the exception of Hippocrates), inspired by the work of Marinus, carried out dissections and vivisections of many animals (especially apes and pigs), surmised the invisible (at the time) connections (capillaries) between the arteries and veins, and once again conducted detailed studies of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. Like so many of his predecessors in the field of biology, he always attempted to explain what he found according to its function and purpose within the life system. Galen not only increased the body of biological knowledge among the Greeks, and further systematized it, but also added the key notion of economy in the body’s functions. For nearly seven hundred years, then, Greek thinkers and researchers attempted to understand the origin and functioning of living things, especially of human life. They engaged in speculation and in detailed observation, and, though not always correct in their conclusions, developed the foundational terminology and methodology of all later biological science. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Science and Technology: Botany; Cosmology; Experimentation and Research; Medicine; Zoology

Science and Technology: Botany FURTHER READING Barnes, J. 1987. Early Greek Philosophy. London and New York: Penguin. Bertman, S. 2010. The Genesis of Science: The Story of the Greek Imagination. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Couprie, D. L., R. Hahn, and G. Naddaf. 2003. Anaximander in Context. Albany: SUNY Press. Curd, P. 2007. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Furley, D. J., and J. S. Wilkie. 1984. Galen on Respiration and the Arteries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hankinson, R. J. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, C. R. S. 1973. The Heart and Vascular System in Ancient Greek Medicine: From Alcmaeon to Galen. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield. 1983. The Presocratic Philosophers. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lennox, J. G. 2001. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1970. Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle. New York: Random House. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1973. Greek Science after Aristotle. New York: W. W. Norton. Mayhew, R. 2004. The Female in Aristotle’s Biology: Reason or Rationalization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Von Staden, H. 1989. Herophilus. The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BOTANY Botany, the scientific study of plants, emerged in the Late Classical Period among the Greeks. This new science built upon many preceding generations of popular observations and traditional uses of plant species. Plants figured in a wide variety of contexts in the ancient Greek world. Already in the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), the large-scale production of perfumes (as, for instance, at Pylos and Knossos) for local use and widespread export required considerable botanical expertise in practice. Greek religious rituals demanded the use of plants, whether domesticated cereals or flowers and vines harvested from the wilderness; indeed, the Greeks associated certain flowers and trees with certain divinities or heroes of old. Greek literature is replete with references to plants, metaphors about plants, and plant symbolism embedded in myths. The parallels between the human life cycle and the process of plant development, from seed through germination and growth, to decline, fascinated Greek philosophers and the religiously devout for centuries.

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The average Greek, especially one who lived and worked in the countryside, would have had considerable familiarity with the basic types and properties of plants, which were widely used in medicine, herbals, ointments, as well as perfumes, and, of course, agriculture and cooking. Professionals known as root cutters (rhizotomoi) maintained traditional knowledge on plant roots, stems, seeds, leaves, and flowers, especially for medicinal purposes; the famous tragedian Sophocles even composed a play about such experts. Indeed, the oldest surviving botanical writing from the Greeks comes from the Hippocratic texts that detail a lot of information on medicinal plants, likely acquired from root cutters by the physicians who then wrote the texts. All the Greek traditions about plant species culminated in the work of Theophrastus of Lesbos (370–287 BCE), Aristotle’s close friend and pupil (and eventual successor as the longtime head of the Lyceum, which he likely helped Aristotle to found), and the foremost ancient Greek authority on botany. He and Aristotle traveled together in the northeastern Aegean; during his stay on Lesbos as the guest of Theophrastus, Aristotle seriously began his researches into the species of the animal world, researches that would lead to four major treatises on animal biology. The two men also worked together in a study of plant life on the island. This experience and Aristotle’s example certainly inspired Theophrastus to do something parallel (in fact, even more daunting) for the much larger and more variegated plant world and led to his three major extant works on the subject, one classifying hundreds of plant species according to form, habitat, and diseases affecting them, another investigating the scents produced by various plants, and still another analyzing the causes behind plant germination, growth, and development of physiological features. Theophrastus sought to analyze and systematize all available knowledge on plant life; this included much information that he collected himself, even within the sacred bounds of the Lyceum itself, where he established a garden. He focused a lot on plants grown in an agricultural setting and so, not surprisingly, also explained the particular uses to which human beings had put the plants he studied. He also must have received plants or information about them from friends or associates who had traveled farther afield than he had, for he recorded and analyzed varieties from across the inhabited world, as Greeks then understood it, not just from the Greek territories. This resulted in an almost complete survey of the major plant groups in the “known world.” Theophrastus provided quite detailed descriptions of the forms of plant species and attempted to ascertain and explain the functions of their parts, taking into consideration the effects of external factors, like topography, geology, soil, microclimate, and so on, on plant physiology and growth. Apparently for the first time in Greek history, plant biology had become a scientific pursuit in its own right thanks to the efforts of Theophrastus and his students

Science and Technology: Botany

at the Lyceum. His considerable writing on the subject may have seemed forbidding to the average reader, though, since it was geared toward those who knew a lot already about the plant world. Moreover, he addressed so much of botany that no other Greek scholar seems to have attempted to rival him or even build on the foundations Theophrastus had laid; nearly three centuries later, the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder would pick up the gauntlet, at least in terms of working to collect all available botanical knowledge up to his time. Exploration and colonization of “new” lands in Asia and Africa after Theophrastus’ day further expanded the botanical “database” of the Greeks; scientific knowledge as well as more popular lore about plants continued to serve the everyday needs of faith healers, physicians, midwives, priests and priestesses, and so on, even poisoners. The most important Greek writings containing botanical information after Theophrastus were the many medical manuals produced in Hellenistic and Roman times. Crateuas, personal physician to King Mithradates VI of Pontus in the first century BCE, drew precise color illustrations of the plants he utilized for their medicinal as well as toxic properties; this added to the continuing reputation of his herbal (his manual on such matters) among later generations into Byzantine times. The physician/pharmacologist Dioscorides of Cilicia (first century CE) traveled widely in the Greek territories, and even as far as Jordan and Egypt, all the while observing the plant life he encountered for the medical uses to which their parts might be put. The result was what moderns call the De materia medica, a five-book treatise that covered some seven hundred plants. So, the ancient Greeks, whether poets, priests, physicians, pharmacologists, or professional botanists, identified and discussed hundreds of plant species. They regarded themselves as intimately interconnected with the world’s flora and sought to understand as well as to harness their properties for the benefit of human society. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Agriculture; Apothecaries/Pharmacology; Trade; Viticulture; Food and Drink: Fruits and Nuts; Grains; Legumes; Olives and Olive Oil; Poisons and Toxic Foods; Vegetables; Religion and Beliefs: Bacchic Worship; Eleusinian Mysteries; Myths and Heroes; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Biology; Geography; Medicine FURTHER READING Baumann, H. 1993. Greek Wild Flowers and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. Translated by W. T. Stearn and E. R. Stearn. London: Herbert Press. Fortenbaugh, W. W., P. Huby, et al., eds. 1992. Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought and Influence. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill. Fortenbaugh, W. W., and R. W. Sharples, eds. 1988. Theophrastean Studies. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University.

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The World of Ancient Greece Meiggs, R. 1982. Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Morton, A. G. 1981. History of Botanical Science. London: Academic Press. Raven, J. E. 2000. Plants and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece. London: Leopard’s Press. Riddle, J. 1985. Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine. Austin: University of Texas Press. Scarborough, J. 2010. Pharmacy and Drug Lore in Antiquity. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate.

CALENDARS Each of the Greek city-states followed its own lunisolar calendar that divided the year into twelve months of unequal length (some “full,” that is, thirty days long, others “hollow,” that is twenty-nine days long) and then tried to tie those months to the seasons of the solar year. Such a calendar would count only 354 days, however, rather than the roughly 365¼ days of the solar year. The Greeks understood that their months, over time, lost proper connection to the seasons of the year, and, thus, that the festivals and other important events in Greek life, especially agricultural activities and rituals, would begin to run out of sync with their proper seasons. In order to square the lunar calendars they used with the seasons of the solar year, they came up with the expedient of intercalation, that is, adding a thirteenth month at the end of the year. This could not be done every year, though, because to do so would have increased the year by nearly twenty days, putting it again out of sync with the solar/seasonal cycle. Instead, the tradition among many Greek communities was to wait two or three years to add the intercalary month (embolimos). Greek astronomers applied their energies to correcting the inherent discrepancies in such calendric calculations. During the fifth century BCE, Cleostratus of Tenedos may have introduced the octaeteris, though many Greeks attributed it to Eudoxus of Cnidus in the following century; in any case, it was a calendar cycle of about eight years (actually 99 months) in which intercalation was intended to take place three times (the years in which to do so would be decided upon by the city-state itself ). The priests at Olympia and at Delphi utilized the octaeteris to determine the correct time of year for holding their respective Panhellenic games. In the later fifth century BCE, the Athenian astronomers Meton and Euctemon reportedly made detailed observations of solar movements and of star risings and settings in order to, among other things, more accurately calculate when to intercalate. Determining the solar year as 365 20 days, they came up with a nineteen76 year cycle, known as the Metonic cycle, during which intercalation was supposed to take place seven times. Early in the following century, Callippus of Cyzicus

Science and Technology: Calendars

attempted to improve upon the Metonic cycle by developing an astronomical calendar over a seventy-six-year cycle, with the subtraction of one day from the last year of that cycle. The astronomer Geminus, in the first century BCE, included in his introductory text on astronomy his argument for making “hollow” every sixtyfourth day in the Metonic cycle in order to further fine-tune the links between lunar and solar years. In their various calculations and discussions, Greek astronomers also concerned themselves with the differing lengths of the seasons. So, Euctemon calculated 90 days for the season between the summer solstice and the fall equinox, 90 days between that equinox and the winter solstice, 92 days between that solstice and the spring equinox, and 93 days between that equinox and the summer solstice again. Eudoxus assigned these seasons 91, 92, 91, and 91 days, respectively, while Callippus assigned them 92, 89, 90, and 94 days, and Geminus 92, 89, 89, and 95 days. Regardless of which multiyear cycle or which length of seasons a Greek community made use of in its calendar, it typically began the calendar year with the sighting of the crescent of the New Moon either after one of the solstices or one of the equinoxes. Again, there was no standard here, which meant that hundreds of Greek city-states started off the New Year on different dates. Many chose the New Moon nearest the summer solstice as the starting point, as for example was the case at Athens; the citizens on the island of Delos, however, used the winter solstice instead, while a number of Greek colonies in Asia Minor, as well as the Macedonian monarchy, started their year near the autumnal equinox. The Macedonian calendar spread in popularity across the Hellenistic world with the conquests of Alexander the Great, except in Egypt, where the long-standing solar calendar of 360 days, plus five intercalary days at the end of the year, remained in operation. Even here, though, the Greek penchant for greater calendric accuracy intruded. In the later third century BCE, King Ptolemy III (likely inspired by the geographer Eratosthenes) attempted to compensate for the calendric drift of one quarter-day that existed even in the Egyptian system; he decreed a leap day every four years. This did not really catch on, though, likely as a result of strong Egyptian attachment to tradition, but a first century BCE scholar named Sosigenes in Alexandria did advise the Roman dictator Julius Caesar in creating a more accurate calendar, including the quadrennial leap day, which the Roman Emperor Augustus fully implemented. Names for the months of the year also varied according to city-state and were usually connected to a religious festival or important civic event held in that month. So, for example, the Thessalians of northern Greece named their sixth

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month Hermaios after the god Hermes and the Spartans named their eighth month Artemisios after the goddess Artemis; the Boeotians and the Thessalians both had a month called Hippodromios, Horse Race Month, but it was the seventh month to the former and the eleventh to the latter. Some communities did not even bother to name their months, instead merely numbering them. The Athenians, and others, complicated matters further by implementing a governmental calendar of ten months that operated side-by-side with the lunisolar calendar utilized to track festivals, agricultural activities, and so on. In most places, the first day of the month was called Noumenia after the New Moon; the last day was usually called by its number, though at Athens the term Old-and-New Day (referring to New Moon and “Old” Moon) was used. The other days of the month might only be numbered in their association with the phases of the Moon. Thus, the third day of the month might be called “Third Waxing,” while the twenty-sixth day might be called “Fifth Waning.” References to calendars occur in many different sorts of Greek literature, and various authors included what they called parapegmata, what we might call almanac calendars, in their works. Parapegmata typically included astronomical as well as meteorological events. City-states inscribed such almanac calendars on stone stelae that they placed in full public view, usually in marketplaces or near important public buildings; holes were drilled into these stelae next to the inscriptions recording particular events and used to mark the current day in time by moving a large wooden peg from hole to hole, therefore creating a sort of tracking calendar. Clearly, the use and development of calendars mattered much in the world of the ancient Greeks, to everyone from workers and farmers to religious devotees and government leaders. The very best minds lavished a great deal of attention on the complexities involved in creating the perfect calendar. See also: Science and Technology: Astronomy; Experimentation and Research; Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy; Navigation; Time-Reckoning FURTHER READING Bennett, C. 2011. Alexandria and the Moon: An Investigation into the Lunar Macedonian Calendar of Ptolemaic Egypt. Leuven: Peeters. Bickerman, E. J. 1980. Chronology of the Ancient World. Revised ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hannah, R. 2005. Greek and Roman Calendars: Constructions of Time in the Classical World. London: Bristol Classical Press. Hannah, R. 2009. Time in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Lehoux, D. R. 2007. Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Samuel, A.  E. 1972. Greek and Roman Chronology. London and New York: Taylor & Francis.

Science and Technology: Cosmology

COSMOLOGY Perhaps most Greeks found it satisfactory to ask the gods to answer their deepest questions about life and the world around them. Some, however, found it necessary, indeed incumbent upon them, to search out such answers for themselves, by use of human reason alone. At first, the Greeks called this search historia, meaning simply inquiry or research, and referred to those engaged in it as sophoi, sages; by Plato’s time, the work of these wise men had been dubbed philosophia, the love of wisdom. In its original form, such philosophizing consisted of cosmology, research into the nature of the universe. The point of origin for cosmology among the Greeks was the string of colonies they had established in Ionia (the central-west coast of Turkey in ancient times), which was soon absorbed into the vast Persian Empire. Contrary to beliefs perpetuated by modern pop culture, the Persians showed noteworthy tolerance toward their Greek subjects; the Greeks found themselves living in a cultural melting pot, where contact with ideas and even people from as far away as Egypt and India, that is, from across the Persian Empire and beyond its borders, inspired an intellectual ferment. The Ionian Greeks came to learn that all those sophisticated cultures regarded the world as a thing of order, cosmos, to use the Greek term. They also came to learn that the mathematical, geometrical, and astronomical discoveries, observations, and speculative insights of these other cultures revealed the logic of the universe, the rules by which it operated, logic and rules that, clearly, humans had the capability of grasping, understanding, and explaining (within certain limits at the time). Particular Ionian Greeks took it upon themselves to add to this knowledge of the more ancient cultures and bring what we would call a scientific conception of the universe into their own culture. In fact, they began to assert something beyond what the other cultures of the ancient world would ever have dared, that the cosmos is so fully explainable by human reason that it cannot possibly be governed by the capricious whims of supernatural forces. These philosophers of nature, these cosmologists, were thus the earliest known natural scientists of the Western world, posing the questions and developing the basic terminology at the foundation of all modern science and scientific discourse. The theories (in Greek meaning notions to contemplate) of the first Greek cosmologist identified by name, Thales of Miletus (d. c. 540 BCE), come to us from much later authors, since he left no writings of his own. Apparently, he traveled widely in the eastern Mediterranean, especially to Egypt, where he used geometry to calculate the dimensions of the Pyramids. He also showed great ability in astronomy, even accurately calculating a solar eclipse. Thales’ researches led him to the conclusion that the creation tales of the Greeks and other cultures were simply that,

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tales; he boldly asserted that the cosmos came about through natural processes of change, originating in the single element of water, the first principle, out of which everything else in the universe was formed. Beginning with Thales, the cosmologists took on pupils to carry on their theories and inquiries. Anaximander of Miletus (d. c. 547 BCE) was Thales’ protégé. Anaximander wrote a work About Nature whose contents survive in quoted fragments. Here he disagreed with his master (beginning a long tradition in Greek philosophy and other branches of learning) on the first element of the cosmos, arguing for the existence of some indefinable, boundless substance (ta apeiron) that could transform through natural processes into everything we see around us in the world; again, change and movement were essential to Anaximander, as was the constantly evolving universe. Pythagoras of Samos (d. c. 500 BCE), who, in fact, coined the term philosophy for what he was engaged in doing, recognized this unity of the universe, as Thales and Anaximander had done. Inspired as he was by the power of mathematics to explain the cosmos, he came to believe that the universe was, indeed, a complex equation, or set of equations, originating in the number one itself. His near-­contemporary, Heraclitus of Ephesus (d. c. 475 BCE), attempted to distill, in rather poetic terms, the essence of what Pythagoras and earlier cosmologists had grappled with. He no doubt realized that, in their search for first elements or principles, they had noticed patterns in the universe beyond what we could perceive through our senses; the cosmos appeared a certain way, but there was much more going on behind the scenes. Heraclitus dubbed this the “logos” of the universe, its essential operating program. For him, the process of change itself was logos, usually noticed by humans as the strife between opposites. Hence, he once remarked that “Strife is the father of all things.” Heraclitus also said, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” The following century witnessed an explosion of speculation, with more cosmologists, from across the Greek world now, building on the “first principle” theories of Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, and especially Heraclitus, whose concept of “change” as the essential principle of reality became the focus of debate. One thinker, Parmenides (d. c. 440 BCE), came from Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy. His theories would have tremendous impact for generations to come. For Parmenides insisted that existence must be eternal, motionless, and never “changeable,” because if it were, that would logically imply that it could change into nothing, or even that it emerged from nothing. Our flawed senses give us an illusion of reality, as Heraclitus said, but an illusion of change rather than one of permanence. We must utilize every bit of our reasoning power and the structures of logical thinking to uncover the “changeless reality” behind the changeable illusions of the senses. Parmenides had turned the concept of Heraclitus inside-out.

Science and Technology: Cosmology

Another fifth-century cosmologist back in Ionia, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (d. c. 428 BCE) agreed with Parmenides. “Change,” he asserted, cannot be the purpose of the universe or else reality itself would be in constant danger of changing into nothingness; there had to be, in his view as in that of Parmenides, an essential stability or stabilizing force behind the cosmos. He identified this as Nous, that is, Reason itself; the universe functions logically because it functions according to the purposes of Reason. We might think of today’s popular phrase, “Everything happens for a reason.” Anaxagoras also took on the propositions of Anaximander regarding the first element of the cosmos. He concluded that to produce anything, the universe had to have begun, not with some indefinable substance, but with an “infinity of seeds,” each containing actual portions of what they would later produce. A near-contemporary of Anaxagoras, Empedocles of Akragas in Sicily (d. c. 432 BCE), tried to reduce the infinitesimally complex building blocks of the former’s cosmos down to four essential roots or elements: fire, air, earth, and water. He supported Anaxagoras, and Parmenides, in arguing that change never truly affects the essential elements of the cosmos, but he also agreed with Heraclitus on the influence of “forces” in the natural world. Empedocles went further, believing that we must take into account not just the force of strife but also the force of “love” in the operation of existence; in other words, Empedocles began to discuss what we might call attraction and repulsion. The interactions of the elements under the forces of “love” and “strife” bring about the “changes” “sensed” or “perceived” by the human eye. One might say that all of this speculation on the cosmos culminated in the theories of Democritus of Abdera (d. c. 370 BCE), a contemporary of Socrates. He considered propositions such as this: if one smashed a piece of wooden furniture, how much smashing would be required until the wood of the furniture was totally destroyed? Engaging in a variety of such mental exercises as well as observations of nature, Democritus came to the conclusion that one might never be able to totally destroy substances within the universe. They were simply broken up into invisibly small, but still fully solid, bits. He dubbed these bits “atoms” (from the Greek word atomos, indivisible) and reasoned that they existed in empty space, all imperceptible to the naked eye. The properties of these unchangeable atoms, especially their different shapes and sizes, must move them about in this void, propelling them to interact, combine, and separate in a myriad of ways, infinite in fact, in order to build up and create the visible world around us. These were the first elements of the cosmos, of reality itself, and that would mean that the “changes” of the sensory world and the “existence” of different things all had their origin in eternal atoms in an ever-changing cycle of behavior. In a sense, Heraclitus was right after all, but so was Parmenides!

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The early Greek cosmologists may have been hampered in their discoveries, especially by the absence of empirical equipment and experiment, or overly dogmatic in their declarations, but they nonetheless asked amazing questions, curious as they were about the first substances of the universe, and engaged in such logical and plausible thought-problems that they made amazing deductions, such as realizing the essential conservation of matter and energy in natural processes. Who knows how many average Greeks had an interest in these speculations, but whether they did or not, they were the serious pastime of aristocrats and the well-to-do, citizens whom average Greeks greatly respected. Cosmologists circulated their writings among their friends and protégés, and many of these works gradually made their way into the schools of the Greek world; many cosmologists had politically active lives (like Parmenides, who composed the law code for his hometown), which meant that their basic notions made their way into the wider public arena. See also: Arts: Sophists; Religion and Beliefs: Creation; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Biology; Geometry; Mathematics and Numeracy; Physics FURTHER READING Falcon, A. 2005. Aristotle and the Science of Nature: Unity without Uniformity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Farrington, B. 1961. Greek Science. Baltimore: Penguin. Hussey, E. 1972. The Presocratics. New York: Scribner’s Sons. Kirk, G. S., and J. E. Raven. 1962. The Presocratic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1987. The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sedley, D. 2007. Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Waterfield, R. 1989. Before Eureka: The Presocratics and Their Science. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Zanker, P. 1995. The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity. Translated by A. Shapiro. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

EDUCATION Education in the sense of schooling did not develop in the Greek world until the fifth century BCE. By the time the Romans fully absorbed that world in the late first century BCE, such paideia had become a point of pride for many Greek communities, a defining characteristic of their Greek identity. Children across the Greek territories traditionally received instruction from their parents regarding proper morality, the religious practices of the family and the

Science and Technology: Education

community, the cultural customs of their city-state, and so on. Mothers prepared their daughters in the responsible behavior of respectable citizen women, while fathers prepared their sons for the public duties of citizenship, duties restricted to males in all Greek communities. Communal activities, especially religious festivals and national celebrations, reinforced all the basic teachings from home. Even in democratic states that depended so much on the informed participation of their citizens, such as Athens, there was no system of public education or any required minimum of knowledge for those citizens. The Greeks had no need, as modern people seem to, of schools to inculcate the ideals, values, and acceptable practices of society. Socialization was done at home and in the community at large. Also unlike the modern world, education seemed unnecessary for the sake of job preparation among the Greeks. The life paths of most Greek children typically followed those of their parents. A cobbler’s son typically grew up to be a cobbler, a stonemason’s son a stonemason, and so on. Fathers personally trained their sons to follow in their footsteps in the matter of occupation. Even an aristocratic youth from the upper echelons of Greek society would learn how to grow up to do as his father and other forebears. Boys and girls who worked on a family farm typically grew up to be adults who worked on a family farm, but some of those girls might marry a man in a different occupation, and they would often learn from their husband how to assist him in any way that was considered acceptable. Mothers or their servants had meanwhile trained the girls of the family in domestic duties, their most important and universal training, which they would need one day to be proper mistresses of their own homes. No trade or technical schools existed in the Greek world. If any further instruction was necessary for a young person, especially for someone who would have to ply a trade different from his (or more rarely her) parents, the latter would apprentice their child to an expert in that trade for hands-on learning. The wealthy and members of the aristocracy might also place their sons (and more rarely their daughters) in the hands of another to teach them valuable skills (such as hunting or fighting) appropriate for their class. Not surprisingly, instruction in the home and through communal events never ended in Greek history, where it remained stronger than in most modern countries; nor did apprenticeship cease. A new option for personal development, what we would recognize as schooling, did arise, however, in the fifth century BCE, to be added to the traditional forms of training. It seems to have first emerged at Athens, where itinerant teachers of varying statuses offered to impart to boys a set of general skills that they considered useful in many walks of life. If a family could afford it, they would send their sons off for a private education under these freelance tutors; the fees for most were relatively inexpensive. The hardship

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Terracotta vessel depicting a schooling scene, c. 480 BCE. Despite the fact that this piece was found at Cerveteri in the land of the Etruscans (modern-day Tuscany, Italy), it portrays typical moments in the education of an Athenian boy, including instruction in how to play the pipes and write using a waxed tablet. (Jupiterimages)

was whether a family could spare the son’s time away from the family farm or business. A sort of typical curriculum developed among these teachers, who usually specialized in separate aspects of that curriculum. The grammatiste¯s would tutor students in grammata (the basics of reading and writing, the study of grammar, literature, and mathematics); the kithariste¯s would teach them mousike¯ (poetry, music, singing, and dance); and the paidotribe¯s would coach them in gymnastike¯ (all sorts of athletics, from personal exercise to combat sports). Such teachers, either using their own homes, rented space, or public places, would take in hand students around age seven and instruct them for as many as ten years (depending on the student’s means and wherewithal). In today’s world, literacy (of various kinds) takes center stage in educational programs. There is no way to tell accurately how many or what percentage of ancient Greeks learned how to write or calculate, but any child who attended school definitely studied how to do so first thing. Using for the purpose a wooden tablet covered with a layer of wax, they practiced copying the alphabet (which doubled as numbers in the Greek world) as demonstrated by their teacher; the child formed letters in the wax by means of a pointed stylos (made of metal or ivory and shaped

Science and Technology: Education

something like a chopstick) and could erase his writing and practice over and over again simply by smoothing over the wax with the dull end of the stylos. Unlike today, families did not have to worry about the cost of books in their children’s study of more advanced subjects because there were very few copies of books in circulation in the first place. The teacher had his copy and his students utilized that, either through reading it themselves or, more often, through memorizing and reciting the text. Most Greek education relied heavily on memorization. To escort their boys safely to and from school, something which most Greek parents rarely could afford the time to do themselves, they could rely on a trusted servant, a paidagoˉgos. Besides serving as chaperones, many paedagogues, having had a certain level of schooling themselves, helped in the training of their charges, supplementing parental instructions and formal education with guidance of their own, often on matters of proper behavior and social customs. Indeed, until the age of sixteen, a young male might spend more time with his paedagogue than with either of his parents. Ancient Greek culture in all periods was a performance culture, in which debating, conversing, illustrating, and demonstrating mattered more than writing and reading in terms of proving your abilities. Not surprisingly, then, there was no shortage of occasions for the display of the skills acquired by students in their various areas of study, especially in Athens. That city loved to sponsor competitive contests or demonstrations among boys at religious festivals; the famous youth choruses at the Panathenaia are one example. Indeed, since teachers required no written exams or papers and awarded no formal diplomas, the way to prove that a student had, in fact, completed a course of study anywhere in the Greek world was for him to show off his new abilities in public. For those who had the time and the money to pursue further education, this was made available by various experts in various fields of study, such as medicine, science, philosophy (which included higher math), and rhetoric. The famous historian Thucydides of Athens was undoubtedly a product of such advanced education, the best available to the elite of his city. Notable specialist educators included the physician Hippocrates, the Sophists Protagoras and Gorgias, the rhetoricians Isocrates and Lysias, and the philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Most taught in their own homes or in rented spaces; some established fairly long-term schools in the neighborhood of sacred areas (like the Hippocratic school on Cos near the Temple of Asclepius) or in or near gymnasia (like Plato’s Academy or Aristotle’s Lyceum). Education, especially of this higher, specialized variety, created new divisions within Greek communities, new statuses according to level and kind of instruction, which, of course, bred new tensions. After all, the comic playwright Aristophanes devoted an entire work, the Clouds, to denigrating the “fake” knowledge and

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wisdom of the supposedly well-educated and their “charlatan” teachers (among whom he included Socrates). Yet, despite such criticism of the “haughty” educated, the methods and successes of Greek teachers in the Classical Age (490–323 BCE) set the standard for a more widely available paideia in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) that followed. Public entities, like city councils, as well as private benefactors literally bought into the notion of education by providing funding to local teachers (often located at gymnasia) to instruct more children, not just boys, as had been predominantly the case, but also girls, and for the establishment of public libraries. Instruction, especially in the great works of Greek literature and philosophy, became the benchmark by which one identified oneself as truly Greek. Moreover, since it differentiated people according to learned culture rather than ethnic background, even non-Greeks in the Greek-ruled Hellenistic kingdoms could aspire to “Hellenize” and integrate themselves into the “mainstream.” The Greek world thus saw the first example of something American education has prided itself on for generations. Formal schooling, especially at the higher levels, had no basis in the old Greek traditions of training youth and could shake traditions up through its incessant questioning. Yet the study of literature, music, and gymnastics, as well as the more advanced subjects, acquired prominence over time among almost all the Greeks precisely because such study came to be regarded as conferring morals and wisdom just as much as mothers and fathers did when training their children for adulthood. In the end, paideia mattered to the Greeks mainly because of this. See also: Arts: Dance; History; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Platonic; Philosophy, Stoics; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Rhetoric; Sophists; Family and Gender: Childhood and Youth; Daughters; Sons; Recreation and Social Customs: Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Geometry; Libraries and Literacy; Mathematics and Numeracy; Medicine FURTHER READING Beck, F. A. G. 1964. Greek Education. London: Methuen. Clarke, M. L. 1971. Higher Education in the Ancient World. London and New York: Routledge. Golden, M. 1990. Children and Childhood in Ancient Athens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Joyal, M., I. McDougall, and J. C. Yardley, eds. 2009. Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Lynch, J. P., 1972. Aristotle’s School: A Study of a Greek Educational Institution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Marrou, H. 1982. A History of Education in Antiquity. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Science and Technology: Engineering

ENGINEERING The ancient Greeks may not have had schools for engineers, or even a precise word for engineering, but they certainly applied their understanding of science and mathematics to the physical improvement of civic life, to the construction of public buildings and water systems, and to the development of machines, especially for warfare. In other words, by definition, they engaged in civil engineering, structural engineering, hydraulic engineering, mechanical engineering, and military engineering. Since many of these topics have been covered in other entries, this article will draw attention to some highlights of the Greek achievement in the field overall. Greek architects or master builders were either expert craftsmen who had acquired a strong knowledge of science and math or expert mathematicians and scientists who turned their talents to structural design. They knew well the mechanics of materials. They even wrote manuals on architectural theory and practice, as did Theodorus of Samos in the early sixth century BCE. When the Greeks began in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) to construct public buildings in stone, such as temples, their architectural engineers (architektoˉnes) developed a more complex post-and-lintel design than the Egyptians, upon whose mathematics and geometry they apparently at first relied. They studied the bedrock and the building materials to be used before laying the foundations of these structures, which they intended to last many years. Ancient Greek building foundations were intentionally designed to bear twice the load capacity of the bedrock itself. When actually positioning the foundation stones, architects paid attention to their grain, placing them with the grain horizontal to support compressive forces and vertical to support suspensive forces. Furthermore, having studied and understood the seismic activity of the region upon which they were erecting their buildings, they often cribbed the foundation stones within beds of stone slabs; they calculated correctly that this would help prevent transmission of earthquake tremors from the bedrock to the building. They also alternated layers of ashes, charcoal, and silty clay with stone or stone chips to absorb stresses, what modern engineers would characterize as a technique of base isolation. When laying the upper circuit of foundation walls that would support the mat of the building, they utilized polygonal stones joined together; Greek architectural engineers discovered that these would differentiate or separate the transmission of forces and stresses from the courses of ashlar (horizontal and rectangular) masonry of a building’s superstructure. Their designing of mat foundations of continuous stone slabs at the base of the superstructure was not only key to avoiding slippage and sinking in shaky ground but also allowed for quick and full drainage after rains. Moreover, a good mat foundation could support many times its weight than separate foundation piles alone.

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Ancient Greek structural engineers designed public buildings that had columns all around them, as in the case of most temples, or columns along one to three sides, as in the case of porticoes (stoae). They calculated that such colonnades could hold up wider, longer, and taller roofs and enclose more space. They built up the columns from drums of stone which, unlike the masonry blocks that formed the interior or back walls of a building, remained unclamped; this allowed the column drums to budge just slightly with each seismic tremor and yet still not collapse. They also did not link columns to their bases or to the walls, which further permitted a maximum of “wiggle.” The superstructures of Greek buildings, especially temples, were designed to mathematical perfection, divided up into modules or parts corresponding to one another in ratios. For instance, Greek architects measured the distance from the middle of one column to the middle of a neighboring column (what modern engineers call the inter-axial measure) and doubled that measure to determine how tall to build the columns; when calculating the width of the entablature (the lintel or horizontal beams laid across the tops of the columns), they made it half as high as the interaxial measure. Ancient Greek buildings appeared perfectly rectilinear when viewed from a distance; this was not accidental but rather the direct result of complex structural engineering. To create the optical illusion of perfect verticality, Greek architects, like the Athenians Callicrates and Ictinus, designed the bases of their structures, especially for large temples, to curve slightly upward toward the middle and the columns to taper toward the top and bulge slightly toward the bottom. Timber roofs completed most Greek public buildings. These were designed to pitch at just about fifteen degrees, perfect for water runoff and to prevent slippage of the terracotta tiles that overlaid them. Special tiles as well as various openings in the roof were positioned to provide excellent ventilation, especially so the buildings could remain relatively cool in the hot summers of Greece. The ancient Greeks also excelled at mechanical engineering, working out the mathematical principles behind why machines worked and building them with greater and greater complexity as models of those principles, as well as for a variety of uses, practical and marvelous. The first-century CE Alexandrian scientist Heron summarized and systematized Greek knowledge of mechanical engineering as it had been passed down from third-century BCE experts like Archimedes of Syracuse, Philo of Byzantium, Ctesibius of Alexandria, Strato of Lampsacus, and Apollonius of Perga. Note how many names we can list in terms of mechanical engineers; such mechanikoi or mechanopoioi, as the Greeks called them, were the most noted experts in applied science within the Greek world. Aside from the “basic machines” of everyday use, like axle and wheels, levers, wedges, pulley systems, and screws, which sped movement, or reduced

Science and Technology: Engineering

the force required to pull, push, or lift an object by multiplying human force, ancient Greek mechanical engineers combined these to create complex building cranes, winches and capstans, treadmills, medical traction machines, rackand-pinion gears and cogwheels, waterwheels and chain pumps, ore-crushing hammers, worm gears and screw-cutting devices, mechanized water clocks, force pumps and water organs, steam-powered robotic puppets, statues, and other “automatic” machines that could open doors, dispense liquids, make figurines sing, and even what might be considered a primitive computer (the so-called Antikythera Mechanism dated to the late second or early first century BCE) for calculating the solar, lunisolar, and sidereal annual cycles, tracking the movements of the planets, Sun, and Moon, and  lunar and solar eclipses. The working models from ancient Greek mechanical and hydraulic engineers demonstrated the basic principles behind the steam engine and even the automobile odometer. Finally, no survey of ancient engineering would be complete without mention of the special field of endeavor that the Greeks, and Romans, regarded as the very essence of engineering, military technology. The Romans labeled such technologies devices of ingenuity, from which the modern English term “engine,” and hence, “engineering,” derives. From the late fifth century BCE onward, the Greeks actively employed and developed military technology (known as mechanai or mechanemata) to turn the tide of siege warfare. These included a new sort of flamethrower, stomach-braced crossbows and “sharp-throwers,” missile-hurling devices (introduced in the form of the katapeltikon, or catapult, commissioned by Dionysius of Syracuse, leader of the Sicilian Greeks in their war against Carthaginian expansion, and designed by competitive teams of expert military engineers and inventors from Greece, Italy, and even Carthaginian territory), improved with swiveling bases, windlass and pulley systems, and torsion springs to maximize targeting, generate greater propulsive force, and deliver much larger projectiles, as well as torsion-driven stone launchers, handheld mechanical slingshots, mechanical lifting/scaling devices, and even air-pressure catapults. Technical writers, like Philo of Byzantium, as well as Aeneas Tacticus (midfourth century BCE), Biton (c. 200 BCE), and Athenaeus Mechanicus (second half of the first century BCE), reveal just how complex the skills and knowledge of military technology became, such expertise spreading widely across the Greek territories, and how much Greek communities, especially the major ones, came to depend on their military engineers for safety and victory. Thus, the ancient Greek world was a world of engineering. Few aspects of life, especially civic life, were left untouched by the contributions from the many branches of “applied science”.

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See also: Arts: Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Metalworking; Mining; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Fortifications; Infrastructure; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Water Supply and Hydraulic Engineering; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Recreation and Social Customs: Theaters; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Experimentation and Research; Geometry; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy; Time-Reckoning; Vehicles FURTHER READING Burford, A. 1972. Craftsmen in Greek and Roman Society. London: Thames & Hudson. Camp, J. McK., and W. B. Dinsmoor. 1984. Ancient Athenian Building Methods. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Campbell, D. B. 2003. Greek and Roman Artillery, 399 BC–AD 363. Oxford: Osprey. Coulton, J. J. 1977. Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drachmann, A. G. 1963. The Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Gates, C. 2003. Ancient Cities. London and New York: Routledge. Humphrey, J. W., J. P. Olsen, and A. N. Sherwood. 1998. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge. Jenkins, I. 2006. Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Landels, J. P. 2000. Engineering in the Ancient World. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lawrence, A. W. 1957. Greek Architecture. Baltimore: Penguin. Marsden, E.  W. 1971. Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Price, D. J. de Solla. 1974. Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Tuplin, C. J., and T. E. Rihll, eds. 2002. Science and Mathematics in Ancient Greek Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, K. D. 1984. Greek and Roman Technology. London: Thames & Hudson. Wikander, Ö. ed. 2000. Handbook of Ancient Water Technology. Leiden: Brill. Winter, F. E. 1971. Greek Fortifications. Toronto: Toronto University Press.

EXPERIMENTATION AND RESEARCH Ancient Greek authors gave credit to humanity for its fundamental characteristics of ingenuity and inventiveness, impelled sometimes by necessity and often by

Science and Technology: Experimentation and Research

sheer curiosity. They may not have explicitly formulated what moderns would call the scientific method, but they did develop what we might call discipline-specific research methods (like the historian’s craft), and the Greeks certainly engaged in activities that were meant to prove theories or provide more information to work with. Thus, they did deliberately attempt to ascertain facts through testing, experimentation, and research. In those scientific fields where direct investigation was virtually impossible, like astronomy or meteorology, or even geology, Greek researchers used the method of analogy, which often entailed the construction of elaborate models to prove a point or of thought problems along the same lines. This had the potential to be good science, as long as the analogies could be constructed close enough to reality. Analogy never fell out of favor among the Greeks, but the notion of empirical research to prove one’s theories or models developed right alongside it. This can be traced back at least to the traditions regarding Thales of Miletus (sixth century BCE), who supposedly visited Egypt to measure the height of the pyramids by means of the geometrical calculation of the shadows they cast at midday. His contemporary, the philosopher Pythagoras of Samos, proposed that musical sounds could be mathematically calculated. Followers of his teachings further developed his theories and conducted tests (as he himself apparently had already begun to do) to prove their understanding of the science of harmonics through accurate numerical equations. The tuning experiments of Claudius Ptolemy (second century CE) serve as a late example of this. Greek scholars like Euclid (third century BCE), Diocles the Mathematician (third/second centuries BCE), and Claudius Ptolemy contributed to advancements in optics (the ancient science dealing with vision) and catoptrics (the ancient science dealing with reflection and refraction). Careful differentiations were made through calculations, close testing, and analysis. For instance, Diocles experimented with concave mirrors to arrive at mathematical formulae for their ability to concentrate and radiate intense light, while Ptolemy conducted experiments using water and glass to arrive at mathematical formulae for refraction. In this same vein, astronomers did what they could to improve their calculations about the Sun, Moon, and stars. They developed new instruments of observation, such as the planar astrolabe, likely created by the phenomenal astronomer Hipparchus of Nicaea (second century BCE), to push their investigations as far as possible. The fields of biology, anatomy, and medicine witnessed perhaps the most stunning research and experimentation. Anaximander of Miletus (sixth century BCE) developed the first-known theory of evolution building upon his hands-on investigations into the bizarre evidence of fossilized marine life along the western

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shores of Anatolia; he speculated that the “embryonic” creatures encased in husks covered in thorny protrusions whose impressions he observed in the fossil record must have been some of the earliest forms of living things. He inspired the work of the philosopher Aristotle of Stagira (384–322 BCE) two centuries later, who made painstaking observations and gathered careful data on the marine life that he studied so intensively. Aristotle’s studies suggest that he had dissected and vivisected some four dozen or more species of animal subjects. Alcmaeon of Croton (late sixth/early fifth centuries BCE) had given a push to Greek researchers in this direction. He had arrived at conclusions (for instance, regarding the brain as the central organ of human beings) by performing dissections on animals and perhaps some form of vivisection. The physicians of the Hippocratic tradition, as recorded in the books of the Hippocratic Corpus, also engaged in experimental investigations, perhaps inspired by Alcmaeon. The author of the famous treatise On the Sacred Disease (mid-fifth century BCE), for example, discusses the purposeful dissecting of the brain of a goat that had died from an epileptic seizure. When opening up the skull of the animal, foul-smelling fluid that did not belong there (implying that they had knowledge of what a healthy goat’s brain cavity should look like) seemed to validate the hypothesis that physiological, rather than supernatural, factors were at work in causing the epilepsy. Anatomical study among the Greeks became most interventionist with the vivisections as well as the dissections of animal and human subjects during the Hellenistic Era and in Roman times as part of continuing medical research. Birds and pigs were used most often by Greek researchers. The famous anatomist Herophilus of Chalcedon (third century BCE) once cut the throat of a live pig to observe its reactions and the changes in its physiology, especially relating to the cardiovascular system that he was investigating. Through his controversial vivisections of criminals sentenced to death in Ptolemaic Egypt, he proved the differences between the cerebrum and the cerebellum of the brain, demonstrated the structure of the eye and the optic nerve, and literally probed the functioning nervous system. His contemporary Erasistratus of Ceos conducted research on the human cardiovascular system similarly through human and animal dissection and vivisection. Although the taboo against experimenting with human beings reasserted itself after their time, Galen of Pergamum (court physician to the Roman Emperors in the second century CE), inspired by their experiments, carried out vivisections on pigs to probe their spinal cords and conducted similar work on living Rhesus monkeys and Barbary apes. A number of advances in anatomy and medical science resulted from the adoption of mechanistic models and their adaptation to the understanding of the human body, as demonstrated in the experiments conducted by Erasistratus of Ceos.

Science and Technology: Experimentation and Research

Greek experts in mechanics and pneumatics engaged in repeated testing to design all sorts of machines from siege artillery to hydraulic musical organs. They started with theories about mechanical forces, water, wind, and steam and proved them or modified them by creating illustrative devices, first from rudimentary elements, then in more and more complex forms. The efforts of Archimedes of Syracuse (third century BCE) in inventing machines to move large objects, or of Heron of Alexandria (first century CE) in developing complicated automata powered by compressed air, or of Philo of Byzantium (third/second centuries BCE) in his perfection of artillery pieces come to mind here. Ancient Greek research also included scholarship in the arts, a key ingredient in the thriving Library and Museum at Alexandria in Hellenistic times. As education expanded across the Greek world, so too did the need to understand literary texts better and to explain them in more sophisticated ways. Greeks as far back as the sixth century BCE, like Theagenes of Rhegium, approached epic tales through their interpretation as allegories rather than taking them literally, seeing the gods as expressions in poetic form of the forces of nature. The fifth-century Sophists continued this line of thinking in their investigations of language and the written constructs of societies. Aristotle wrote an entire treatise entitled Poetics and his school later began to have some impact on literary interpretation. Particularly significant were the guide to the holdings in the Library of Alexandria put together by Callimachus and the work of other scholars there in producing editions of the “classic” Greek authors with marginal notes (scholia), as well as separate essays, handbooks, and commentaries that spun literary research off in various directions. The first director of the Library, Zenodotus of Ephesus (late fourth century BCE), had pioneered this sort of philological scholarship with his collation of Homer’s epics and their division into books, his editing of Hesiod’s Theogony and of Pindar’s poems, and his explanations of difficult words and idioms from epic and lyric poetry organized into alphabetical glossaries. The third director of the Library, a renowned geometer and mathematician, Eratosthenes of Cyrene (third/second century), also acquired a reputation as a philologos, especially for his work on the comedic plays of the Classical Age (490–323 BCE); his successor, Aristophanes of Byzantium produced further critical editions of the epic and lyric poets and comedies, as well as tragic plays; he not only created new glossaries but also treatises on poetic expression, on character types and stage performance, and so on. His pupil Aristarchus of Samothrace (second century BCE) continued this tradition, especially on all things Homer, while his contemporary and rival Crates of Mallus helped to create a competitor library at Pergamum founded upon his own significant works of allegorical interpretation. Together, these and other prominent Greek literary scholars removed corruptions from and identified linguistic anomalies within the manuscripts with which they worked,

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developed a complex understanding of the etymology and meanings of words and phrases and the intertextuality in the literary texts, analyzed the style of authors, and initiated lexicography. Certainly, then, experimentation and research served as key ingredients in ancient Greek civilization for a long part of its history. The Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) particularly witnessed an increase in the scale of this. Philo of Byzantium gave credit for the tremendous spirit of experimentation common in those times to the emergence of major sponsors, like the ruling dynasty of the Ptolemies in Egypt. The importance of their Museum cannot be underestimated: sanctioned officially, funded generously, focused strongly on discussion through symposia and lectures, it generated a very different experience in the pursuit of knowledge compared to that in earlier periods and was soon duplicated, albeit on a smaller scale, in places like Pergamum, Antioch, Rhodes, and Syracuse. One should also give credit to Aristotle, who served as a model of the master researcher to his students and to future generations. In all his pursuits, he had deliberately set out to push beyond the limits of what was then known more than anyone who had come before him. In his Parts of Animals, Aristotle once wrote that definite rules should be set to test one’s methods, certainly a good creed for a serious researcher; he also asserted that anyone can learn a great deal about everything if they take the time and trouble to do so. This can perhaps be taken as a motto for all ancient Greek experimenters and scholars. See also: Arts: History; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Astronomy; Biology; Botany; Cosmology; Engineering; Machines; Medicine; Navigation; Zoology FURTHER READING Barker, A. 2007. The Science of Harmonics in Classical Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dickey, E. 2007. Ancient Greek Scholarship. New York: Oxford University Press. Drachmann, A. G. 1963. The Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. El-Abbadi, M. 1992. Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. 2nd ed. New York: UNESCO. Harris, C. R. S. 1973. The Heart and Vascular System in Ancient Greek Medicine. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Irby-Massie, G. L., and P. T. Keyser. 2002. Greek Science of the Hellenistic Era. London and New York: Routledge. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1987. The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1992. Methods and Problems in Greek Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Science and Technology: Exploration Lloyd, G. E. R. 1996. Aristotelian Explorations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neugebauer, O. 1957. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. 2nd ed. Providence: Dover. Pfeiffer, R. 1968. History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reynolds, L. D., and N. G. Wilson. 2013. Scribes and Scholars. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russell, D. 1991. Criticism in Antiquity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Von Staden, H. 1989. Herophilus. The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

EXPLORATION The ancient Greeks were always explorers. From their earliest history, they took to the sea in search of trade opportunities; over the generations, they sought out new lands on which Greek populations might settle and prosper. In either case, the adventuresome among them took the first step by setting out into the unknown. About Greek explorers in the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), we really know nothing, aside from the results of their efforts. The Mycenaean culture of that time not only extended over most of the Greek mainland but also across the Aegean Islands and at some spots along the western coast of Anatolia; more than that, Mycenaean ships traveled the length and breadth of the Mediterranean. None of this would have been possible without now-anonymous Greek explorers charting the way. In the Dark Age (c. 1100–c. 800 BCE) and the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), Greek communities, mostly pressured by land hunger, began to send out colonies to southern Italy and Sicily and southern France. They seem to have usually had a pretty firm idea of where they were headed and what resources lay there, thanks to the explorer-merchants who had gone on before them. Hence, the earliest colonies in southern Italy were the work of the pioneering Chalcidians from Euboea who had scoped out the western territories for raw materials (especially metal resources) and trading partners; further colonies followed along such trade routes. That pattern appears to have been duplicated across the territories colonized by Greeks. Military operations also motivated exploration and often coincided with it. The Greeks had experience of this in Persian service. For instance, when the Great King of Persia, Darius I, sought to expand his empire into India, he commissioned a Greek mercenary navigator, Scylax of Caryanda, to conduct a voyage all the way down the Indus River from a starting point in northeastern Afghanistan. The expedition was a success and the record of it established Scylax as a famous

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explorer, especially as Greeks became more and more fascinated with “faraway” India in later generations. One of these Greeks was Alexander the Great, who sent his friend and admiral, Nearchus of Crete, on a similar reconnaissance expedition nearly two centuries later. Like Scylax, Nearchus recorded his voyage down the Indus, but, unlike him, Nearchus did not sail southward into the Indian Ocean and return home by way of Suez; instead, he took a route into the Persian Gulf and up the Euphrates River. Such periploi, or “sailings around,” inspired further maritime expeditions. In the fourth century BCE, a very popular account of an expedition around the Mediterranean came into circulation under the name of Scylax (known today as Pseudo-Scylax). In the late second century BCE, the scholar Agatharchides of Cnidus explored the Erythraean or Red Sea as far as Nubia (southern Egypt and northern Sudan), likely on a royal commission from the Ptolemies. Around that same time, the Ptolemies authorized Eudoxus of Cyzicus to return to India with a sailor who had been shipwrecked from there; the result was that Eudoxus, together with Hippalus (perhaps his pilot?), opened up to Hellenistic Greeks the knowledge of how to utilize the monsoon winds to sail back and forth safely and profitably between Egypt and India. Another “dangerous” place in the Greek imagination deserving to be unlocked by explorers was the Black Sea. Known to the Greeks also as the “inhospitable sea,” sailors from Megara and especially Miletus began to penetrate its mysteries and overcome its obstacles of wind and waves in the eighth century BCE, after which the Greeks established many colonies all around the coastal regions. Even as late as the second century CE, however, the historian Arrian of Nicomedia, serving in the Roman administration, could feel the need to write an entire monograph on the landmarks, harbors, weather conditions, goods, sources of food and water, and so on, to be found there, as if the coasts of the Black Sea, so long settled and traveled by Greeks, still retained something of an exotic flavor. Perhaps this should not be too surprising: the Black Sea was, after all, the setting of one of the Greeks’ oldest adventure stories, the tale of Jason and the Argonauts. The Atlantic Ocean probably held out the greatest fears and mystery to the ancient Greeks. In the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), they found inspiration to explore the Atlantic from previous examples of real and imaginary expeditions into the Ocean launched by the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians. According to the stories that the Greeks had heard, seafarers from these cultures had made attempts, respectively, in the seventh and sixth centuries, to round the coast of West Africa; the Carthaginians under Hanno the Navigator had supposedly made it as far as Sierra Leone or even Cameroon. Of course, Greeks also had their own tales, such as the one the historian Herodotus recounted about a merchant named Colaeus from the island of Samos who, thrown off course by a massive storm, found safe harbor at Tartessus outside the Pillars of Heracles (Straits of Gibraltar), beyond the

Science and Technology: Exploration

boundaries of the “known world.” His fortuitous accidental exploration, if it can be believed, brought him a huge profit in a cargo of metals; in point of fact, Colaeus’ voyage in the late seventh century BCE would have taken place at least a century after Phoenician merchants had already opened up trade with the Tartessian culture of southwestern Spain for metals like tin, silver, and gold. Stories like those about Hanno and Colaeus contained enough plausible fact to encourage the Greeks to believe such journeys into the vast unknown waters of the west were feasible and enough exotic fantasy to ignite the Greek imagination. Thus was sparked the voyage of the geographer/astronomer Pytheas of Massilia (late fourth century BCE). He sailed into the North Atlantic from western France and circumnavigated Britain and Ireland; he may have reached as far north as Iceland or Norway (which he called Thule¯), and then proceeded eastward to Denmark and apparently into the Baltic Sea before returning home by way of the Atlantic again. Much of his journey has a veil of mystery about it; even where he started from remains unclear—perhaps he had crossed France from Massilia (mod. Marseilles), or perhaps he had sailed from there to Gades (mod. Cádiz) in southern Spain and from Gades up to the Atlantic coast of France. Other explorers followed the example of Pytheas, like Artemidorus of Ephesus (late second century BCE), who sailed along the Atlantic coast of Spain and incorporated detailed observations from his journey into a major work on geography. His contemporary, Eudoxus of Cyzicus (the Indian Ocean explorer), suspecting that a shipwreck he had discovered on the east coast of Africa had made its way around the continent all the way from Gades, decided to attempt a similar circumnavigation himself. He made one abortive voyage from Spain; the outcome of his second attempt, during which he may have disappeared, remains a mystery. Greek explorers provided vital information to merchants and military engineers, of course, but also to geographers (a number of whom were explorers themselves), and mapmakers. The latter had been a feature of Greek culture from at least the sixth century BCE; average men and women routinely consulted maps on papyrus and painted wooden panels in the Classical Period and even maps projected onto model globes in Hellenistic times. Geography came into its own in the latter period, especially with the work of Eratosthenes of Cyrene (third century BCE), and really could not have done so without the efforts of Greek explorers. Unlike more modern experiences of exploration, among the ancient Greeks, such adventuring into the unknown did not have the intention of exporting goods into overseas markets as its first objective. Instead, the goal was always to bring something back: raw materials, luxuries, strategic intelligence, scientific knowledge, even wisdom. Greek explorers, whether traders, sailors, commanders, or scholars, took considerable risks to attain this boon for their people and, in doing so, they opened up new horizons for the ancient Greek imagination. No wonder

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that one of their greatest heroes, Odysseus, was himself an explorer—even if a reluctant one. See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Trade; Travel; Housing and Community: Colonization; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Cosmology; Geography; Geometry; Navigation FURTHER READING Brodersen, K. 1999. Mastering the World: Ancient Geography. London and New York: Routledge. Burstein, S. M., trans and ed. 1989. Agatharchides of Cnidos: On the Erythraean Sea. London: The Hakluyt Society. Carpenter, R. 1966. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules. New York: Delacorte Press. Cary, M., and E. H. Warmington. 1963. The Ancient Explorers. London and New York: Penguin. Casson, L. 1994. Travel in the Ancient World. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Casson, L. 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cunliffe, B. 2001. The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek. New York: Walker and Co. Derow, P., and R. Parker, eds. 2003. Herodotus and His World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dilke, O. A. W. 1985. Greek and Roman Maps. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dueck, D. 2012. Geography in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hawkes, C. F. C. 1977. Pytheas: Europe and the Greek Explorers. Oxford: Blackwell. Huntingford, G.  W.  B., trans. 1980. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. London: The Hakluyt Society. Reed, C. M. 2003. Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roller, D.  W. 2006. Through the Pillars of Herakles: Greco-Roman Exploration of the Atlantic. London and New York: Routledge. Romm, J. S. 1994. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roseman, C., ed. and trans. 1994. Pytheas of Massalia: On the Ocean. Chicago: Ares. Shipley, G. 2011. Pseudo-Skylax’s Periplous: The Circumnavigation of the Inhabited World. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

GEOGRAPHY The ancient Greeks coined the term geographia, meaning to study and write about the Earth, in the third century BCE. Long before then, however, they had been

Science and Technology: Geography

collecting and passing on to posterity whatever information they could about the nature of the Earth’s surface (what moderns would call physical geography) and about the people who inhabited its various climates (what moderns would call human geography). Across time, different Greek authors, none of them full-time geographers in a professional sense, recorded much of this knowledge, primarily motivated by an ethnographic interest in the Earth’s peoples (whether Egyptians, Africans, Indians, or even their fellow Greeks) or the desire to gain useful data about the travel routes and locations for prosperous trade. Certainly, such practical understanding of geography went back to the Bronze Age Greeks (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), who moved widely across the Mediterranean region, but only scattered details in their Linear B tablets record any of their geographical knowledge. Centuries later, a broader geographical picture began to form with the Histories of Herodotus; he sought to piece together all the relevant information on peoples and places in the world then-known (the oikoumene¯ as Herodotus called it) to facilitate comprehension of his account of the wars between the Greeks and the Persians. Besides, Herodotus simply seemed to have a voracious appetite for international travel and foreign cultures. He did some of his own traveling to collect his information but he also relied on conversations with and texts written by other travelers of various sorts and on generations of travel tales told among the Greeks. Most of these sources on geography remain for us anonymous, but from Herodotus we do learn about some named experts on geography from the late sixth/early fifth centuries BCE. Scylax of Caryanda, for example, recorded his geographical observations as a mercenary commander commissioned by the Persian King Darius to chart a voyage down the Indus River, across the Indian Ocean, and around to Suez. Hecataeus of Miletus, a scholar who helped support the Ionian Revolt against the Persians, put together a geographical guidebook (  Periegesis) that traced the coastal and island territories of Mediterranean Europe as well as the provinces of the Persian Empire in Asia and Africa; in fact, Hecataeus quoted quite a bit from the account (Periodos) Scylax left of his voyage. In both cases, one sees geography serving practical purposes: for Scylax, it enhanced the imperial ambitions of his boss and for Hecataeus, it provided potentially valuable military intelligence regarding “the enemy.” Moreover, their accounts began to separate geography from mythology, which had traditionally attributed the natural world to supernatural beings (Earth as a goddess, the sky as a god, and so on). Like these predecessors, Herodotus treated geography and ethnography as intimately interconnected and also sought rational explanations for the causes of phenomena in the landscape, whether meteorological, geological, or topographical. In describing the oikoumene¯, Herodotus did break with his predecessors on a few things, for instance, with Hecataeus by thinking (erroneously) that Asia

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was a larger continent than Europe. Most notably, Herodotus challenged the ageold notion that a huge river of water, Oceanus (also traditionally seen as a divine entity by the Greeks), encircled the inhabited world; the ocean, he asserted, was virtually unseen except in the West. Moreover, his information told him that the then-known land masses, Europe, Asia, and Africa (the Greeks called the latter Libya), stretched well beyond their supposed limits, leaving in doubt the existence of ocean to the north, south, and east. Herodotus aside, most Greeks continued to believe in the encircling ocean into Hellenistic times. By then, however, the majority of Greeks likely held the view that the Earth was spherical rather than a flat disk in shape, an idea first proposed by philosophers as far back as Pythagoras in the sixth century BCE and certainly circulating among the educated in Herodotus’ day. A century after him, Greek astronomers and philosophers interested in geography were slicing up the spherical Earth into climate zones (arctic, temperate, equatorial, and anti-arctic); such “experts” and other authors were also speculating on the existence of other continents, perhaps to the far west, as in Plato’s fabled story of Atlantis, or in the far southern hemisphere, what they called the Antipodes. Indeed, the second-century BCE scholar and Pergamene librarian, Crates of Mallus, proposed the existence of four land masses (indicating them on his model globe, apparently the first of its kind), each divided from the others by ocean, as a matter of “necessary balance” of land across the entire Earth’s surface. Greek historians had continued to follow the example of Herodotus in incorporating geography into their accounts, like Timaeus of Tauromenium (late fourth/ early third century BCE), whose History contained much geography and ethnography in its introductory books, while Greek philosophers, like Posidonius of Apamea (first century BCE), had continued in the footsteps of earlier explorers in recording firsthand geographical and geological observations (in his On the Ocean), which he, unsurprisingly, turned to philosophical purposes. In the meantime, the conquests of Alexander the Great had opened up vast territories in the continent of Asia to firsthand Greek observation and the director of the Library of Alexandria in the later third century BCE, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, did not miss his opportunity of incorporating the significant increase in geographical knowledge into his work, Geographica. Perhaps better than any of his predecessors, he appreciated the need for such knowledge as he came to understand the immense size of the Earth; in his On the Measurement of the Earth, he quite accurately calculated the circumference of the terrestrial sphere. Eratosthenes also built on the notion of climate zones earlier developed by philosophers of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE by dividing the oikoumene¯ of the so-called temperate zone into lines of latitude and longitude for a more mathematical mapping of the Earth’s surface. Having access to the massive collection of varied books in the Library (including the travelogues of explorers like Pytheas of Massalia in the

Science and Technology: Geography

North Atlantic and Nearchus of Crete in western India and the Persian Gulf ) and himself an expert in many fields, Eratosthenes made his Geographica the textbook on the subject for generations to come. For modern readers, however, the geographical textbook of greatest usefulness is the one created by the scholar Strabo of Amaseia in the early first century CE; it survives virtually intact, unlike all the works of his predecessors. Strabo returned to the example set by Eratosthenes, though he did not focus on the mathematical precision or the astronomical correlations of the geographical discipline. Instead, he emphasized the usefulness of geographical study for the running of an empire (in this case, the Roman Empire), especially in terms of military preparedness. Strabo’s Geographia sought a comprehensive view of the known world, taking into account all the new information made available by the expansion of and the interactions between the Roman and the Parthian realms. Crucially for modern readers, he spent quite some time summarizing the work of past authors on geographical matters, taking that material all the way back to the poet Homer (whom many Greeks apparently regarded as the first geographer in their culture) and incorporating many elements from the wide-reaching study of perhaps the most selfconsciously “professional” geographer among the ancient Greeks, Artemidorus of Ephesus (late second century BCE). In the following century, the astronomer Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria turned his attention to geography as a mathematical field. Following in the path of Eratosthenes as well as the cartographer Marinus of Tyre (late first/early second century CE), he worked to create a map of the known world, establishing coordinates of latitude and longitude for over eight thousand places using astronomical observations as well as data extracted from travelogues and such. Across the generations, then, the ancient Greeks studied geography in tandem with what moderns would regard as many separate disciplines, like history, philosophy, astronomy, ethnography, geology, meteorology, and cartography; sometimes in the same text, they sought to understand the causes of volcanic activity, lunar-tidal correlations, or thunderstorms, as well as the reasons behind the eating habits of other cultures, and the form and distances of significant topographical features. Unlike Ptolemy’s guide to geographic mapmaking, most ancient Greek texts on geography or containing geographical details tended to be descriptive in nature rather than strictly scientific; they resembled modern guidebooks or geographic magazines and were not usually brand-new works but rather syntheses of past and present knowledge, both general and peculiar. Even when they leaned more heavily in a scientific direction, Greek geographical texts still contained many inaccuracies, most often as a result of insufficient data. Since they typically served a nonspecialist readership, though, geographical works still brought all sorts of useful information to a wide variety of interested parties.

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See also: Arts: History; Economics and Work: Trade; Travel; Politics and Warfare: Alexander the Great, Wars of; Religion and Beliefs: Myths and Heroes; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Cosmology; Exploration; Geometry; Navigation FURTHER READING Berggren, J. L. and A. Jones. 2000. Ptolemy’s Geography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brodersen, K. 1999. Mastering the World: Ancient Geography. London and New York: Routledge. Carpenter, R. 1966. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules. New York: Delacorte Press. Cary, M., and E. H. Warmington. 1963. The Ancient Explorers. London and New York: Penguin. Clarke, K. 1999. Between Geography and History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cohen, M., and I. E. Drabkin. 1966. A Source Book in Greek Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Derow, P., and R. Parker, eds. 2003. Herodotus and His World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dicks, D. R. 1960. The Geographical Fragments of Hipparchus. London: Athlone. Dilke, O. A. W. 1985. Greek and Roman Maps. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dueck, D. 2012. Geography in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dueck, D. 2017. The Routledge Companion to Strabo. London and New York: Routledge. French, R. 2005. Ancient Natural History. London and New York: Routledge. Huntingford, G.  W.  B., trans. 1980. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. London: The Hakluyt Society. Roller, D. W. 2010. Eratosthenes: Geography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Romm, J. S. 1994. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roseman, C., ed. and trans. 1994. Pytheas of Massalia: On the Ocean. Chicago: Ares. Sallares, R. 1991. The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Taub, L. 2004. Ancient Meteorology. London and New York: Routledge. Thomson, J. O. 1948. History of Ancient Geography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warmington, E. H. 1973. Greek Geography. London: J. M. Dent and Sons.

GEOMETRY Ancient Greek authors believed that geometry originated with land surveying, and the term geoˉmetria never lost that association, even as it came to refer primarily to the study of spatial forms and their mutual relationships. Geometry became the principal object of ancient Greek mathematics, a field of fascination for generations

Science and Technology: Geometry

of Greek scholars and an essential science in the material culture of the ancient Greek world. Individual Greek scholars pursued their interest in geometry, as well as in number theory and so on, not typically as paid, academic professionals in the modern sense (though some did work as teachers or consultants), but rather as enthusiasts, and they circulated their ideas among one another and other interested parties via manuscript scrolls made of papyrus or parchment. Such scholars would propose theorems or problems for themselves and others to consider; theorems were designed to augment existing conclusions about the mathematical or geometrical relationships among a set of objects by logically proving additional relationships among them, while problems were designed basically to augment the objects included within a set of mathematical or geometrical relationships. Particular framing, wording, and technical terms were utilized to make the arguments tight and cogent, together with diagrams for further illustration, labeled with letters corresponding to the objects of the proposition, including formulaic sorts of shorthand expressions. Modern readers can recognize the Greek method as the basis of our own. Perhaps anachronistically, Greek tradition first attributed this approach to geometry to the sixth-century BCE Milesian wise man Thales, who studied the properties of circles and triangles and supposedly developed mathematical formulas for measuring the height of the Pyramids of Egypt by means of the shadows they cast at midday. The almost legendary stories told of Thales, and of Pythagoras of Samos, who lived later in the same century, speak to the debt that the ancient Greeks owed to their Egyptian and Babylonian predecessors in the field of geometry; indeed, the Babylonians already knew the “Pythagorean Theorem” for determining the lengths of the sides of a right triangle as far back as the sixteenth century BCE. Yet credit must be given to Pythagoras or at least to his school of thought for recognizing that ten points arranged in rows of 1, 2, 3, and 4 points each formed a perfect triangle (the tetraktys) and could be disassembled to construct all visible geometric patterns (point, line, form). Under the influence of Pythagoreans at Athens, the mathematician Hippocrates of Chios (second half of the fifth century BCE) set himself to solve geometric problems that clearly had already gripped Greek intellectuals. He attempted to calculate a square with the same area as a given circle (“squaring the circle”), to calculate twice the volume of a given cubic form (“doubling the cube”), and to calculate an angle one-third of a given angle (“trisecting the angle”), all by means of complicated mathematical formulas and geometrical proofs. Another devotee of the teachings of Pythagoras, Archytas of Tarentum (early fourth century BCE), developed further theorems in the direction of solid

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geometry, investigating the properties of cubes and cylinders. His pupil, Eudoxus of Cnidus, became most famous as an astronomer—a reminder of the close relationship between geometry and astronomy in ancient Greek science—but also attacked the problem of “doubling the cube” and continued his master’s work by studying the volumes of prisms, pyramids, cylinders, and cones. Many of his methods of calculation and approximation, like the so-called method of exhaustion, whereby the geometer bounded irregular objects with regular ones to approximate volumes and areas, were later utilized by Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287–212 BCE). By his time, geometers regularly corresponded with one another across the Greek world, sending along their mathematical manuscripts to distant colleagues for their perusal and comment; Archimedes produced dozens of such works on his favorite geometric forms (spheres, cones, planes, parabolas, and circles) and added to Eudoxus’ method of exhaustion by conceiving of each form as constructed from an infinite number of lines (a similar sort of thinking as serves as the basis for 3-D printing in today’s computer technology). Archimedes, and other geometers of his generation, would have had available to them the writings of Euclid, Greece’s most famous expert in the field. In the first half of the third century BCE, Euclid, probably working at the Library and Museum of Alexandria, attempted to synthesize all geometry and mathematics (including the works of Hippocrates, Archytas, and Eudoxus) as then known among Greeks, Egyptians, and Babylonians, laying out the essential axioms and definitions and building up examples from axiom to axiom in logical, sequential order. Not surprisingly, Euclid’s master work, Ta Stoicheia, or the Elements, became a standard text among all Greek scholars of science by at least the first century BCE and informed Euclid’s own and others’ studies in spherical astronomy and optics. From Euclid’s time onward, one of the hottest topics in Greek geometry and mathematics was conic sections, that is, calculating the surface areas of planes slicing through cones at different angles and especially calculating the curvature of those planes, which took the shape of ellipses, hyperbolas, and parabolas. It was the mathematician Apollonius of Perga (late third–early second century BCE) who, in fact, gave these names to the forms that Greeks had previously called acuteangled, obtuse-angled, and right-angled conic sections, respectively. Attempting to complete the work begun by Euclid, Apollonius established his reputation as the most renowned expert on conics, laying out their fundamental properties through hundreds of geometric propositions, but he also investigated polygons and polyhedrons, building on the efforts of Archimedes. Across its history among the Greeks, geometry had taken on aspects of both abstract and practical problem-solving. Nowhere was the latter more evident than in the application of geometry to the development and defense of cities and the

Science and Technology: Geometry

creation of machines. Philo of Byzantium (c. 200 BCE), for example, provided advice derived from geometry on the proper construction of city-walls (which he said should consist of a zigzag of triangles to improve field of fire for defenders) and on the scale and strength of ballistic artillery. In the first century CE, Heron of Alexandria not only provided “modern” commentary on the writings of Euclid and his own formulas for measuring and dividing the areas of quadrilaterals, triangles, and circles, as well as the volumes of all sorts of solids, but also applied the geometric knowledge he had acquired from studying so many predecessors to his own investigations of land surveying, architectural design, pneumatics, hydraulics, and ballistics. For instance, he famously explained how two teams of miners, tunneling inside a mountain from opposite sides, could make use of geometry to ensure that they met at the proper point! Increasingly systematic in methodology over the generations, and always fascinating to its practitioners, geometry held a prized place among the Greek sciences. The Greeks considered it essential to a learned individual and without it they could not have achieved technological and architectural greatness nor stretched their minds to such fine investigations of the cosmos. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Platonic; Sculpture, Archaic; Sculpture, Hellenistic; Sculpture/Freestanding Statuary, Classical; Sculpture/Reliefs, Mounted Statuary, Classical; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Housing and Community: Fortifications; Housing Architecture; Infrastructure; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Education; Geography; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy; Navigation; Ships/Shipbuilding; Vehicles FURTHER READING Barker, A. 2007. The Science of Harmonics in Classical Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cuomo, S. 2001. Ancient Mathematics. London and New York: Routledge. Dilke, O. A. W. 1987. Mathematics and Measurement. London: British Museum. Fried, M. N., and S. Unguru. 2001. Apollonius of Perga’s Conica: Text, Context, Subtext. Leiden: Brill. Heath, T. L. 1921. A History of Greek Mathematics. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heath, T. L. 1964. Diophantus of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra. New York: Heath Press. Knorr, W. R. 1986. The Ancient Tradition of Geometrical Problems. Boston: Dover. Netz, R. 1999. The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Netz, R. 2004. The Works of Archimedes: Translation and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neugebauer, O. 1957. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. 2nd ed. New York: Dover.

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GREEK LANGUAGE GROUPS Today, scholars believe that the ancient Greek language in one or more forms was spoken in the Aegean basin by at least the early fourteenth century BCE. From the start, it was a dynamic language, adjusting to meet local circumstances and very open to borrowing elements (especially vocabulary) from other tongues (like “Minoan,” Luwian, Proto-Hittite, and so on). Indeed, Greek came into existence as a sort of amalgamated language as a result of this dynamism. The oldest form of Greek known to us is Mycenaean; this is the language in which were written the Linear B tablets from Bronze Age Greece (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE). Of the three most widespread dialects of ancient Greek in later times (Aeolic, Doric, and Ionic), Mycenaean most closely resembles the Aeolic dialect, spoken predominantly in the northern portions of the Greek mainland and across the northern Greek islands of the Aegean all the way to the northwest corner of ancient Turkey. Characteristic features of Aeolic include such things as longer vowels (strotos instead of stratos for “army”), reduction of diphthongs to simple vowels, infinitives ending in -men or -menai, survival of the digamma from Mycenaean times (oikos, “family,” pronounced “woikos”), as well as particularities in vocabulary different from the other dialects (drasein instead of thuein for “to sacrifice”). Sappho and Alcaeus, two famous lyric poets of the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) from the north Aegean island of Lesbos, wrote in Aeolic Greek. The Doric dialect of Greek was spoken in most of southern Greece, on a few of the Greek islands, and in the southwestern corner of ancient Turkey. Doric may have originated in what today is northwestern Greece and Albania, since there was in ancient times this odd connection of linguistic commonality in populations far distant from one another. Like Aeolic, Doric is also characterized by longer vowels (Artamis instead of Artemis), and retention of the digamma; more unique features are infinitives ending in -nti and hard consonants instead of aspirants at the start of certain words (toi instead of hoi for “those”). Doric also contains vocabulary very different from the other Greek dialects (apella instead of ekkle¯sia for “assembly”). Speakers of Doric traced their ancestry back to a population they claimed invaded Greece and conquered the Peloponnese during the Dark Age. The most famous speakers of Doric in later times were the Spartans.

Science and Technology: Greek Language Groups

Aeolic and Doric are usually studied in terms of their contrasts, like those noted above, with “standard” or “Classical” Greek, by which we mean a particular fusion of Ionic and Attic. Two closely related “cousin” dialects of Greek, Ionic and Attic became the predominant languages of education, literature, and culture across the Greek world. The Greeks of Asia Minor, specifically those who lived in Ionia (the central part of western Turkey) in places like Miletus, Ephesus, and Samos, spoke and wrote in the Ionic dialect of Eastern Greek. Attic was also a dialect of Eastern Greek, but was spoken and written on the Greek mainland in the peninsula of Attica, the territory dominated by the city-state of Athens. Speakers of Ionic and Attic could surely have understood one another well, despite slight differences in the alphabets, spelling, and morphology of their dialects. Ionic Greek was the language of Homer’s poetry and of the Pre-Socratic scientists, Attic the language of the historian Thucydides and the philosopher Plato. This Attic Greek eventually took precedence, in the form moderns refer to as Classical Greek, but even it contained many Ionic borrowings in terms of spelling, pronunciation, and style. Indeed, by the fourth century BCE, Attic had fused with many particular Ionic elements to create yet another dialect of the language known as the koine¯, Greek “in common.” Linguistic evidence clearly indicates that this koine¯ Greek was generated by more sophisticated aspects of Ionic Greek writing being combined with Attic by members of the Athenian elite as well as by aspects of Ionic Greek spoken by the soldiers and sailors of the Athenian Empire being combined with spoken Attic at a more popular level. With the conquest of mainland Greece and the Aegean territories by the Macedonian dynasty of Philip II and Alexander the Great, the use of koine¯ spread beyond the largely Ionic-speaking region of the Greek world previously dominated by the Athenians. The Macedonians themselves spoke a dialect of Greek from the northwestern mainland, but one containing many loanwords from the nearby Illyrian tribes. They found koine¯ useful and so not only adopted it themselves but further expanded its use when Alexander took it into the Persian Empire with his armies. The Hellenistic world that resulted employed koine¯ Greek, both in a popular version for everyday speech and in a complex version for official documents, literature, and high society. Abroad in Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Middle East, native peoples and Greek immigrants were, thus, exposed to different forms of the Greek language at the same time, as was also true back in the Greek homeland. For there it was not uncommon to retain use of one’s own dialect of Greek and to speak and/or read koine¯as well. Furthermore, the educated elite of the Roman world, both Greek speakers and Latin speakers, attempted to revive the use of Classical Greek in a purified form during a movement they called the Second Sophistic, making the Greek linguistic landscape even more diverse and complex.

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See also: Arts: History; Philosophy, Platonic; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Second Sophistic Movement; Politics and Warfare: City-States; Ethnos; Science and  Technology: Alphabet; Cosmology; Education; Inscriptions; Linear A and Linear B FURTHER READING Bakker, E., ed. 2010. A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Buck, C. D. 1955. The Greek Dialects. 2nd ed. London: Bristol Classical Press. Cook, J. M. 1962. The Greeks: In Ionia and the East. London: Praeger. Erskine, A., and L. Llewellyn-Jones, eds. 2011. Creating a Hellenistic World. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Hall, J. M. 1997. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hansen, M. H., and T. H. Nielsen, eds. 2004. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horrocks, G. 2010. Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers. 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Jeffery, L. H. 1990. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Palmer, L. R. 1980. The Greek Language. London: Faber & Faber.

INSCRIPTIONS Inscriptions served as the most visible form of “information technology” in the ancient Greek world. They appeared on coins, mosaic tiles, glass, bone, and, as will be discussed here, metal, stone, and clay. Made use of by individuals, families, groups, communities, and kingdoms, inscriptions conveyed information that was considered too significant to be forgotten and too relevant to a wider audience to be kept private. The earliest extant examples of inscriptions in what laypeople today would recognize as Greek go back to the seventh century BCE. They are painted on pieces of pottery or incised in stone by hammer and chisel, written in horizontal lines of capital letters unseparated by spaces, with few abbreviations and seldom any marks of punctuation. This description would continue to characterize the vast majority of Greek inscriptions in all later periods of ancient history. In addition, most inscriptions were carved on only one side of a surface, but, in some cases, where maximum display was necessary, front and back or even all sides might be carved (so-called opisthographic inscriptions). In the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), inscriptions were usually painted or carved “backwards” from right to left or in the boustrophedon technique, that is, in alternating lines of right to left and left to right (in the manner of an ox plowing a

Science and Technology: Inscriptions

field—hence, the name), the letters going right to left carved as mirror images of themselves. During the Classical Age (490–323 BCE), these patterns were gradually abandoned, in some places sooner than others, in favor of inscriptions reading left to right. The stoichedon technique, however, remained popular across both periods; each line of an inscription was deliberately arranged to have an equal number of letters so that all the letters of the inscription appeared to form a perfect grid pattern. The various styles of the anonymous artisans who carved the inscriptions can be isolated and dated by scholars, even to within a quarter century from the fourth century BCE onward. In Hellenistic times, inscriptions generally reveal smaller lettering, usually to squeeze in longer texts, and the carving of letters with serifs, which would become even more widespread practice thanks to the Romans. Private individuals erected inscriptions from at least the Archaic Period carved upon stone ste¯lae (upright stone slabs or pillars) to mark the boundaries of their lands and from at least the Classical Age to memorialize deceased loved ones.

Limestone block from Attica inscribed by Phaidimos with a funerary epitaph dedicated to Chairedemos by his father Amphichares, mid-sixth century BCE. Phaidimos carved the first two lines of the inscription in dactylic hexameter, conventional at this time in expressing grief, and in the boustrophedon style, where the first line is written from right to left and the second from left to right. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1916)

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Boundary stones (horoi) usually looked pretty rough, with only a small portion of the front surface smoothed, just enough to clearly incise the name of the landowner and any additional information required to dissuade abuse of the delineated boundaries, or to indicate that the land had been pledged as some sort of financial collateral. The tradition of grave markers with symbolic or decorative imagery stretched back to Mycenaean times (c. 1700–1100 BCE), but in the Classical Age such ste¯lae served as permanent testaments to grief by displaying inscribed data about the deceased, as well as epitaphs, often in poetic form. An individual might inscribe a horos himself or herself, but grave markers, some entirely smoothed stone, all finely chiseled, were always the work of professional artisans. In religious sanctuaries, private individuals hired skilled artisans to set up ste¯lae from the Archaic Period onward. These markers expressed their prayers, vows, and dedications to the gods; indeed, these seem to have been the oldest sorts of inscribed ste¯lae in the Greek world. They abound in sacred places like Delos, Delphi, and especially Olympia and on top of the Acropolis at Athens. Clearly, Greeks thought it was an important thing to preserve for all time their experience of good relations with the gods, their expectations of them and their devotion to them. Groups of individuals, especially artisanal guilds (synergasiae or synodoi), social clubs (eranoi or hetaereiae), and religious fraternities (thiasoi), also made inscriptional dedications to the gods at sacred sites. In addition, they often set up stone slabs or bronze plaques to openly list the rules of their organization, to thank a benefactor or patron for his or her support, to congratulate a monarch who had some connection to them, to honor the achievements of one of their own members, and so on. Almost every urban center in the Greek world has revealed some inscriptional evidence to modern archaeologists because the ancient Greek communities developed the habit of selecting certain decrees, laws, awards, or dedications for public display. In Archaic times, evidence suggests more of these official inscriptions would have been on metal, like the bronze plaques set up by the Eleans at Olympia; abundant metal would have been easier and lighter to work with and more reusable, simply filed down on the surface and reinscribed. In western Greece, bronze remained the medium of choice for official inscriptions even into later time periods. The Classical Age experienced a notable increase in official inscriptions on stone, perhaps to herald the more long-term, even permanent, announcements of decisions made by an increasing number of democratic communities. Indeed, the largest number of extant inscriptions comes from the period 300 BCE and 200 CE, a time of booming prosperity for many ancient Greek cities. Moreover, they had the confidence to expect that their official inscriptions would remain unchanged and so they often listed penalties against their defacement or alteration.

Science and Technology: Inscriptions

The two law codes of Gortyn (on the island of Crete), for example, were the official decisions of popular vote. They were inscribed in large letters using the boustrophedon technique around 450 BCE and eventually were built in to the city’s music hall, where they would have been on wide public display. As another example, on the Acropolis at Athens, citizens, resident aliens, and visiting foreigners would have seen a forest of ste¯lae (the tallest standing about 12 feet high) recording the “first fruits” of the contributions that subject allies of Athens had to make to finance the Delian League over the period from 454 to 414 BCE. Roughly the first two decades of those “first fruits” were inscribed on two ste¯lae; the remaining years each received their own marble block. Today, scholars have reconstructed as much of these inscriptions as they have been able to, building them up from literally hundreds of fragments. Of course, the most famous official inscription in stone from the ancient Greek world is often not even associated with the Greeks by modern people. Yet the Rosetta Stone is a large fragment of a ste¯la erected during the reign of a Greek king, Ptolemy V. Inscribed in ancient Greek, Egyptian demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, it commemorated the establishment of a ruler cult for the young king in the spring of 196 BCE in thanksgiving for his granting of tax exemption to the Egyptian priests at Memphis, as well as for his gifts to them and his aid to local farmers. Indeed, the Rosetta Stone is only one of four such trilingual inscribed ste¯lae from Ptolemaic Egypt in the third and second centuries BCE. These examples from Gortyn, Athens, and Egypt reveal some of the purposes of ancient Greek inscriptions in an official sense: to make all citizens familiar with the laws of the land, or to track (and show off ) the tribute coming in from one’s imperial assets, or to herald the beneficent relationship between a ruler and his subjects. Official inscriptions also identified civic officials, registered public accounts, posted regulations for religious rituals, land deals, and manumission of slaves, validated treaties, proclaimed winners of athletic events, publicized correspondence from great benefactors, honored generous patrons, celebrated famous texts of revered authors, announced oracular pronouncements from the gods, and so on. They might be located at public buildings or in religious sanctuaries, in the agora, cemeteries, or gymnasia, but always somehow open to view. The Bronze Age Greeks of Mycenaean times inscribed clay tablets (in the script we call Linear B) with their official inventories and accounts. In later generations, the Greeks virtually abandoned clay as a medium for official inscriptions, with two noteworthy exceptions. First, they sometimes made use of ostraca, pieces of broken pottery, for official purposes. In Athens, for example, they were used to record individual votes during a special form of exile procedure known as ostracism; in Ptolemaic Egypt, ostraca recorded official accounts, tax receipts, and correspondence. Second, ancient Greek merchants shipped liquid goods in

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amphorae, large terracotta containers, which were often stamped with inscriptions on their handles, especially from major commercial centers like Cnidus, Thasos, and Rhodes. In various combinations, extant amphora stamps might name the potter and sometimes the producer of the contents of the container, provide a date and place of origin for it, or even the magistrates under whom the container was shipped. This information was used in the work of customs officials and market inspectors along the Greek trade routes. Inscriptions abounded within the Greek territories and even beyond in all those places directly affected by contact with the Greeks, that is, as far as Spain in the west and Afghanistan in the east. Some 400,000 have been discovered so far, in a whole variety of types. Yet this figure represents only a fraction of the total number of inscriptions, public and private, that would have been on display in ancient times. Moreover, even those on display would have been only a fraction selected out for a reason from the archives of a king, community, group, family, or individual, which would have been on papyrus or parchment rather than metal or stone. Regardless of whether that reason can be discerned today, extant inscriptions help to fill in many gaps in our knowledge of the ancient Greek world in terms of particular locales, social customs, economic practices, religious beliefs, dialectal survivals and linguistic developments, and even the influence of Greek culture on the other populations that adopted Greek ways. See also: Arts: Literature, Hellenistic; Painting, Pottery; Poetry, Lyric; Economics and Work: Currency; Masonry; Merchants and Markets; Taxation; Trade; Family and Gender: Burial; Mourning/Memorialization; Housing and Community: Acropolis; Cemeteries; Marketplaces; Public Buildings; Urban Life; Politics and Warfare: Democracies; Diplomacy; Justice and Punishment; Leagues/Alliances; Public Officials; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Religion and Beliefs: Libations and Offerings; Magic; Oracles; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Alphabet; Greek Language Groups; Linear A and Linear B FURTHER READING Bodel, J., ed. 2001. Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions. London and New York: Routledge. Cook, B. F. 1987. Greek Inscriptions. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Eiring, L. J., and J. Lund, eds. 2004. Transport Amphorae and Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. Copenhagen: Aarrhus University Press. Faraone, C., and D. Obbink, eds. 1991. Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Science and Technology: Libraries and Literacy Jeffery, L. H. 1990. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McLean, B. H. 2002. An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Meiggs, R., and D. M. Lewis. 1997. A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Merritt, B. D., H. T. Wade-Gery, and M. F. McGregor, eds. 1939–1953. The Athenian Tribute Lists. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rhodes, P. J., with D. Lewis. 1997. The Decrees of the Greek States. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rhodes, P. J., and R. Osborne. 2003. Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404–323 B.C. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tracy, S. V. 1990. Attic Letter-Cutters of 229–86 B.C. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ventris, M. G. F., and J. Chadwick. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Willetts, R. F., ed. 1967. The Law Code of Gortyn. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Woodhead, A. G. 1981. The Study of Greek Inscriptions. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LIBRARIES AND LITERACY Although some have wondered if they might have been inspired by the example of the royal archives in the Ancient Near East, the libraries of the ancient Greek world, both private and public, always lacked the emphasis on record-keeping of those predecessors. Instead, Greek libraries acquired a very clear purpose of preserving appreciated works of literature, especially for educational purposes, and this emphasis contributed to a spreading of literacy among the Greeks unseen in the Ancient Near Eastern cultures. A form of library, in the sense of a private collection of books, existed in the Greek world as far back as the sixth century BCE. Greek historians recorded that Polycrates of Samos, a popular dictator (or tyrant, to use the Greek word) and great patron of art and poetry, had his own bibliothe¯ke¯ (library), or more accurately “book stacks.” They also claimed that another such tyrant, Pisistratus of Athens, created the first library open to the public. Particular Greek city-states, like Athens, contributed further to the establishment of libraries by seeking to possess copies of important writings, such as the poems of Homer or the stage plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, which were all utilized in state-sponsored religious festivals. Retaining copies of such works in the hands of the state ensured that they would be preserved  in exact duplicates for reference across the generations. In fact, a law of the Athenian statesman Lycurgus from c. 330 BCE confirms this as official policy.

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The strongest single impetus among the Greeks for investing time, effort, and resources in creating library collections of history, poetry, plays, technical treatises, and so on, however, seems pretty clearly to have come from the philosopher Aristotle in the later fourth century BCE. As a prolific writer himself in many fields, Aristotle had a personal interest in retaining copies of his own output; he also needed to have copies on hand of works by others, especially of scientists, that guided his own and his pupils’ studies. As a result, his collection grew to be substantial; later Greek authors credited it as the first library in their culture. Aristotle served as tutor to prince Alexander of Macedon and likely also to the latter’s childhood friend and future general, Ptolemy son of Lagus. After the death of Alexander the Great, when Ptolemy established himself as king of Egypt, he conceived the idea, in imitation of Aristotle, of founding a great library in his capital city of Alexandria. Moreover, unlike Aristotle, Ptolemy likely had firsthand knowledge, from his military campaigns across the region, of the great archives in the palaces of the Near Eastern kings, which contained not only administrative records but also famous literary works. He likely sought to imitate these collections as well, to make himself greater than all the kings who had come before him. Aristotle’s library had been a private collection, for use only by himself, his students, friends, and associates. The royal collections of the Ancient Near East had likely benefited a wider readership, but still an elite one, including the royal family, perhaps other nobles, and certainly the priestly caste. The Library of Alexandria, as originally founded and especially as developed by Ptolemy’s successor, Ptolemy II, was open to an even wider, literate elite from across the Greek territories. There were, in fact, two separate libraries. Only particular learned individuals (still quite a few according to surviving evidence), appointed by the royal family, could make use of the main library, located in the royal palace and situated near the Museum, the Ptolemaic research institute; appointed membership in the Museum provided one with a salary, tax exemptions, lodging, food, and access to the library. The secondary library, located at the sacred shrine to Serapis, apparently served a much wider readership. In addition, the Ptolemies attempted to make their collection comprehensive in its holdings. This objective, along with that of opening the libraries to more people, was something new in the story of ancient libraries, as was the fact that the first four Ptolemies were not just rulers but learned authors in their own right, being, respectively, a historian, a zoologist, a literary scholar, and a playwright. As a consequence, like Aristotle, they cared deeply on a personal level for the success of their great library. Not much can be said for certain about how the Library of Alexandria looked, though scholars believe that, once again, it owed a debt even in terms of its physical

Science and Technology: Libraries and Literacy

layout to Aristotle. A set of rented rooms around a colonnade on the outskirts of Athens had served as his school, the Lyceum; the two structures that composed the Ptolemaic Library, the original inside the royal palace, the later at the Serapeum, were probably also arranged as rooms around colonnades. By the early second century BCE, other Greek monarchs of the Hellenistic world had established libraries in an attempt to rival that of the Ptolemies. Antiochus III, for instance, possessed a royal library at Antioch; Eumenes II founded a library at Pergamum. The ruins of the latter, part of a building attached to the sanctuary of Athena, serve as the oldest example of an ancient library available to us by way of archaeology. Consisting of a row of four rooms, the Pergamene library was situated on an upper floor along the north side of the colonnade that marked off the sacred precinct, or temenos, of Athena. The rooms opened out onto the upper colonnade, which thus provided them with natural light and fresh air. Three of the rooms seem to have contained the stacks, though the wooden shelves long ago disappeared; the fourth and largest room, decorated with statues and busts of famous authors (as the extant inscribed names indicate), probably served as a reception area. Evidence suggests also the presence of tablets on the walls on which would have been inscribed the catalog listings (  pinakes), similar to the system developed at Alexandria. Along similar lines, an inscription on the wall of a library in Rhodes lists the authors within the collection there in alphabetical order and, under their names, their works; the holdings seem to have been arranged topically or by genre. Even the library at Pergamum seems to have been intended for use primarily by scholars, and one should remember here, after all, that ancient Greek librarians were scholars in their own right. They established the criteria by which ancient works were judged to be authentic, besides studying them for linguistic and stylistic purposes. Hence, Zenodotus of Ephesus, the first director at the Library of Alexandria, gave succeeding generations what would be considered the definitive editions of Homer, improved upon with the critical text by the fifth director, Aristarchus of Samothrace (and thus establishing the basis of all Byzantine and Renaissance copies of Homer’s epics), who had succeeded Aristophanes of Byzantium, who himself divided up into acts and so on the works of the great Greek playwrights. In a world without copyrights, the Greek librarians, especially at Alexandria, provided much-needed quality control as well as scholarly insight. They also took the lead in the acquisition of books for their collections, which, just like in the days of Aristotle, had to be obtained through formal requests to other libraries or through purchase from private individuals. As smaller libraries began to pop up all around the Greek world at this time (as on Rhodes, at Athens, on Cos, and elsewhere), many catered to an ever-widening public. An inscription from Cos records the donations in support of its library’s construction, and four donors receive special mention as contributing books to the

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facility. Many libraries were attached to gymnasia, conceived in those Hellenistic times as cultural and educational, not just exercise or physical training, centers. The so-called Ptolemaion near the agora in Athens is a case in point; it was supported on a regular basis, at least in part, by the ephebes, the young men of military age who studied and trained there. An inscription preserves a record of the theatrical holdings they would have consulted. This brings to mind the question of literacy among the ancient Greeks. From their earliest appearance, Greek books (really scrolls), had traditionally been read aloud for one’s own benefit or for an audience of listeners. Clearly, in a library setting, reading would have to have been done silently for the most part, a habit already noted in plays of the fifth century BCE. Reading inside a library thus required wider individual literacy, which does seem to have increased in the third and second centuries BCE. Inscriptions from a variety of places indicate donations of money and fundraising through endowments to support ever-widening education. The remains of papyrus scrolls in Greek Egypt prove that a range of literacy levels existed there, as it likely did across the Greek territories. Even villagers in Egypt were reading whole books of Greek literature; and the remains and their locations (even in tomb sarcophagi) prove that these were privately owned books that might have been copied from the “originals” in the public libraries, even on one’s own scrap paper by a hired scribe, and then placed in one’s own personal or family library (as in the case of a copy of Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution copied down by four different hands on the back of business records!). The key to such widespread literacy was access to what scholars might call a scriptorium, either a private shop where scrolls would be copied by hand or one located inside a library, as at Alexandria. Already by the early fourth century BCE lots of books were available for purchase, and there were places to buy such books, if not borrowed from a library (which seems to have been much less common than simply reading on site), such as the orchestra in the Athenian agora, noted as far back as the fifth-century comic playwrights and the philosopher Plato. The Romans picked up from the Greeks their love of reading, of book collecting, and of libraries. In imitation of the Greek originals, they erected public libraries across their Empire as proofs of cultivation, learning, and sophistication. Hellenized populations around the Mediterranean world thus possessed “book stacks” to call their own. See also: Arts: History; Literature, Hellenistic; Music; Philosophy, Aristotle; Poetry, Epic; Poetry, Lyric; Rhetoric; Satyr Plays; Theater, Comedy; Theater, Tragedy; Housing and Community: Public Buildings; Urban Life; Recreation and Social Customs: City Dionysia; Festivals; Gymnasia/Palaestrae; Liturgies, Euergetism, and Welfare; Science and Technology: Education; “Paper”-Making

Science and Technology: Linear A and Linear B FURTHER READING Blum, R., and H. Wellisch, trans. 1991. Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Beginnings of Bibliography. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Brosius, M., ed. 2003. Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Casson, L. 2001. Libraries in the Ancient World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. El-Abbadi, M. 1992. Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. 2nd ed. Paris: UNESCO. Harris, W. 1989. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Johnson, W., and H. Parker, eds. 2009. Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kenyon, F. G. 1951. Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lewis, N. 1974. Papyrus in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Posner, E. 1972. Archives in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Roberts, C. H., and T. C. Skeat. 1987. The Birth of the Codex. London: British Academy. Thomas, R. 1992. Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LINEAR A AND LINEAR B Before the ancient Greek world employed a phonetic alphabet, other sorts of writing systems existed there. These systems, known today as Linear A and Linear B, reveal the close links and parallels between the Bronze Age societies of the Aegean basin and the Bronze Age societies of the Ancient Near East. Archaeologists, beginning with Sir Arthur Evans in the early twentieth century, have discovered over fourteen hundred items, clay tablets and a variety of other ancient objects, inscribed with a writing system of close to one hundred different characters. Evans labeled that writing system “Linear” because the characters appear as inscribed multilinear shapes, typically in rows; eventually, he divided his discoveries into two separate scripts, calling them simply “Linear A” and “Linear B.” The specimens of Linear A all date to approximately 1850–1450 BCE, roughly the height of the so-called Minoan civilization, and come from across the southern Aegean region, especially the island of Crete. The presence of Linear A writing on many different sorts of objects (seal impressions, jewelry, tablets, pottery) in different contexts (from remote religious sanctuaries to once-bustling palace complexes) has suggested to scholars that literacy was wide-ranging among the Minoan population, not just something practiced by expert scribes. Scholars have also speculated on the origins of the script, whether Mesopotamian or Egyptian or something else, since Linear A remains undeciphered, thus representing a language still unknown to us.

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The shapes of ninety Linear A characters match those in another pre-Classical writing sys­ tem that we call “Linear B.” Also first discovered by Evans during his excavations on Crete, Linear B appeared on many more clay tablets there and seemed more complex in form and later in time than Linear A. In 1939, during excavations at the Mycenaean palace of Pylos in southwestern Greece, American archaeologist Carl Blegen uncovered hundreds more of the Linear B tablets. Today, Linear B script survives on over four thousand clay tablets and close to two hundred separate Linear B characters have been identified. The Linear B artifacts date roughly 1450–1200 BCE and come especially from the Bronze Clay tablet inscribed with text in Linear B script, Age sites of Pylos and Mycenae thirteenth century BCE. The Bronze Age Greeks in southern Greece, Knossos developed this form of writing from the Linear A form invented by the so-called Minoan civilization on Crete, and Thebes in central on the island of Crete; both writing systems recorded Greece. Archaeologists surmise primarily administrative data about the palace that the script developed first at complexes that dominated the Aegean region at the time. (DEA/G. Nimtallah/De Agostini/Getty Images) Knossos over a long period of time, as an offshoot of Linear A, but also side-by-side with it, perhaps as far back as the sixteenth century BCE. Whether it always expressed the Greek language remains an open question among some scholars, who wonder if Greek speakers migrated to Crete and played a role in developing the script. Taken to southern Greece in the course of the fifteenth century BCE, Linear B spread to other parts of the mainland, as far north as Thessaly. Unlike Linear A, Linear B was deciphered in 1952, by amateur paleographer and linguist Michael Ventris. Building upon the earlier efforts of classicists Alice Kober and Emmett Bennett, and eventually working together with linguistic expert John Chadwick, Ventris found that the Linear B characters consisted of syllables (either vowels or consonant-vowel combinations), pictographs, and number signs;

Science and Technology: Linear A and Linear B

the syllabic signs translated into a very old, yet recognizable, form of the Greek language. Interestingly, Linear B’s appearance almost exclusively on clay tablets, as well as a variety of ancient storage containers (such as stirrup jars) and seal impressions, had already suggested (and still does suggest) a more restricted knowledge of writing in the so-called Mycenaean culture (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE). Ventris’ translation of Linear B/Mycenaean Greek reinforced this suggestion: the extant examples consist of administrative and economic inventories, account books and records, or identity tags, all in a sort of technical shorthand, quite conservative in style, limited in vocabulary and terminology, very consistent across the Mycenaean world and unaltered over the centuries of its use. No doubt Linear B was the exclusive possession of a professional class of specialized scribes. Many of the technical terms they utilized remain unidentified. Despite high hopes that the decipherment of Linear B would aid in the unlocking of Linear A, this has not been the case. The fifty syllabic and forty pictographic signs that Linear B shares with Linear A do not make any sense when the sounds or ideas from the later script are applied to the former; the application of sounds from other language systems also has not turned up any connections. The vast majority of the examples of Linear A and Linear B, the clay tablets, survive by accident, thanks to the destruction by fire of the buildings in which they had been housed; the flames baked the tablets, making them almost indestructible. Yet scholars have discovered clear evidence that these tablets were never meant to last that long among the ancient peoples; instead, the tablets themselves reveal indications of having been erased and reused over and over again, and many other artifacts point to the use of perishable items, such as papyrus, as additional writing materials, likely in much greater numbers, in both the Minoan and Mycenaean societies. Nonetheless, the fortunate survival of Linear A, and especially Linear B, has taught us much about the complexity of the civilizations in the early Greek and pre-Greek Aegean world. We now know that Greeks certainly lived in that region from at least the middle of the second millennium BCE and that, for a time, they copied in many respects the highly bureaucratic societies of the Ancient Near East. See also: Science and Technology: Alphabet; Greek Language Groups; Inscriptions FURTHER READING Bendall, L. M. 2003. The Decipherment of Linear B and the Ventris–Chadwick Correspondence: Exhibition Catalogue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chadwick, J. 1958. The Decipherment of Linear B. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chadwick, J. 1987. Linear B and Related Scripts. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Daniels, P. T., and W. Bright. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Robinson, A. 2002. Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts. London: Thames & Hudson. Ventris, M. G. F., and J. Chadwick. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LITERACY. See LIBRARIES AND LITERACY MACHINES Greek literature is replete with stories about machines and their inventors, marvelous things like the automatons of Daedalus, the water organ clock of Plato, or the flying wooden dove of Archytas of Tarentum. Many such stories seem too fantastic to be believed, but real Greeks did create real machines that had practical applications in warfare, construction, mining, processing of raw materials, and so on—in other words, real impact on real lives. The ancient Greeks excelled at the science of mechanics (mechanike¯), which helped them to understand why machines worked and how to build them; they sought the mathematical principles behind motion and the devices that could generate motion. Utilizing the theories of Archimedes of Syracuse and Philo of Byzantium, for instance, the first-century CE Alexandrian scientist Heron summarized and systematized Greek knowledge about the mechanical “powers,” the simplest machines. Everyday Greeks had long familiarity with these devices, such as the axle and wheels of their wagons and chariots (that made transport so much easier), levers, wedges, and pulley systems (that seemed to reduce an object’s weight and the force required to lift, pull, or push it), and screws (that seemed to multiply human force when applying pressure to an object). At least as far back as the sixth century BCE, the Greeks made use of more complex machines that combined the mechanical “powers,” like the presses they employed in crushing olives, grapes, and other fruits. The basic version was the lever press, in which a heavy beam was forced downward onto the fruit by means of a weighted lever. A horizontal winch might be attached to the lever and replace the hanging weights by providing greater torque in applying pressure to the fruit;

Science and Technology: Machines

an even more complex mechanism combined lever, winch, and weights for maximum pressing power. Such complex machines could also be employed to pull or lift. The Greeks told a story of how the workers of the Corinthian tyrant Periander in the sixth century BCE used horizontal winches and vertical capstans to haul ships overland across the stone runway he had them build through the Isthmus of Corinth. The crane, apparently a Greek invention of the same era, also combined mechanical “powers.” Designed typically as an inverted V-frame, it was capable of being raised and lowered, using compound pulleys at least by the fourth century BCE; by then, multiple geared axles might be incorporated for winching, even attached to treadmills powered by men. Greek doctors of the fifth century BCE and afterward used traction machines to help them in setting broken limbs (the ancient forerunners of the medieval torture device known as the rack!). Ropes strategically attached to the patient were tightened by means of winches at each end of the bed or table. Later modifications included screws and pulley systems. Archimedes, the foremost expert on the use of the mechanical screw among the Greeks, developed the worm gear in the mid-third century BCE, meshing a vertical, toothed wheel with a screw operated by a handle. The worm gear served as a key part of his mechanism to single-handedly pull ashore the sailing ship of the tyrant Hiero of Syracuse. By at least the first century CE, the mechanical screw was either combined with the lever or used on its own in fruit presses. The need to drain or lift water drove the development of many machines among the Greeks. Again Archimedes famously employed the hand-cranked screw as a water-lifting machine (the hydraulic screw or screw pump), refining an earlier version used in the Ancient Near East. Not surprisingly, the Greeks long utilized pulleys and winches to lift water out of wells. From at least the early first century BCE, they constructed chain pumps, discs on a chain passing through a tube, to collect and move quantities of water, out of ships’ hulls or mine shafts, for instance. Centuries before, they built waterwheels, or tympana, driven by human beings in a treadmill or right-angle geared for animal power and even waterpower, to raise water. Archimedes attached right-angle gearing to an axle that turned a wheel of buckets or pots to collect and drain water. Water was a key feature of Greek clocks known as klepsydrae, some of which were mechanized. Ctesibius of Alexandria did so in the third century BCE, for instance, when he positioned floats inside his water clock and attached them to rack-and-pinion gears and cogwheels. These mechanical parts transmitted the downward motion of the water in the clock to different sorts of external gauges that marked the passage of time.

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Certainly, Strato of Lampsacus, leader of the Lyceum in the early third century BCE, had familiarity with the latest principles regarding the use of water, air pressure, and steam in powering machines and the transmission of that power via floats, racks, and cogwheels. Ctesibius earned great fame for inventing many machines that utilized such forms of artificial power, like the force pump, the hydraulis or water organ, and even air-pressure catapults. His efforts inspired Apollonius of Perga to create an automaton flute player, Philo of Byzantium to build a puppet theater consisting of automata whose cam systems allowed them to move things (like a toy carpenter that could raise and lower its hammer), and the anonymous inventor whose 12-foot-high seated “robot” Nysa could stand up, pour a libation, and sit down again while adorning the procession of King Ptolemy II! Heron of Alexandria provides descriptions of many such “automatic” machines, devices that could open the doors of a temple by lighting a fire on an altar outside, dispense holy water with the insertion of a coin, pour a selection of different liquids from the same container, make figurines drink water, sing, or dance, automatically refill an oil lamp or extend its wick, and so on. His own aeolipile employed steam under pressure, piped into a metal ball, which escaped from tubes on opposite sides of the ball; this steam exhaust caused the ball to revolve in continuous motion, demonstrating the basic principles behind the later steam engine. Hero also described a machine for measuring distances while traveling by wheeled vehicle. It consisted of a pair of gear wheels, one vertical and connected to the axle of the vehicle, the other interlocked with the vertical one but itself horizontal; the horizontal wheel carried little stones or pebbles in rings of holes. One revolution of the vehicle’s axle would turn the vertical wheel, which would then turn the horizontal wheel as well. When the horizontal wheel turned a sufficient distance, it would release a pebble or small stone through an opening into a box that would collect these markers and thus indicate the passage of a designated distance. Such a machine, called a hodometer by scholars, was apparently also used on board Greek ships, its movements driven by paddlewheel. Certainly, the most complex, and intriguing, machine from the world of the ancient Greeks is one that survives today thanks to an ancient shipwreck discovered in 1901. Dated to the late second or early first century BCE, the so-called Antikythera Mechanism consists of eighty-two corroded bronze fragments. Originally housed in a wooden box, the fragments would have fit together as more than thirty, parallel gearwheels sandwiched between front and back dial plates. The whole seems to have functioned as an elaborate astronomical calendar, capable of correlating the solar, lunisolar, and sidereal annual cycles, of tracking the movements of the planets, Sun, and Moon, and of calculating lunar and solar eclipses. Perhaps made at Alexandria for a western Greek customer, the Antikythera Mechanism

Science and Technology: Machines

bears similarities to the descriptions of Archimedes’ sphere, or planetarium, a device which, no doubt by intricate internal gearing, displayed the motions of the planets, Sun, and Moon across a spherical surface. Literary as well as archaeological evidence suggests that many other such complex machines existed among the Greeks, and scholars suspect that the astrolabe so popular in the Middle Ages had its origins in similar Greek inventions, by way of Byzantine technological instruments (like the famous sundial calendar in the London Science Museum). See also: Economics and Work: Metal-Refining; Mining; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Astronomy; Calendars; Mathematics and Numeracy; Time-Reckoning; Vehicles FURTHER READING Antikythera Mechanism Research Group. “Project Overview.” Accessed June 2, 2019. http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/. Camp, J. McK. 1984. Ancient Athenian Building Methods. Athens: American School of Classical Studies. Coulton, J. J. 1977. Ancient Greek Architects at Work. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cuomo, S. 2007. Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drachmann, A. G. 1948. Ktesibios, Philon and Heron: A Study in Ancient Pneumatics. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Drachmann, A. G. 1963. The Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity: A Study of the Literary Sources. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Field, J. V., and M. T. Wright. 1985. Early Gearing: Geared Mechanisms in the Ancient and Mediaeval Worlds. London: Science Museum. Hannah, R. 2009. Time in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge. Hodges, H. W. M. 1970. Technology in the Ancient World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Landels, J. P. 2000. Engineering in the Ancient World. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lehoux, D. R. 2007. Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World: Parapegmata and Related Texts in Classical and Near-Eastern Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oleson, J. P. 1984. Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Price, D. J. de Solla. 1974. Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Tuplin, C. J., and T. E. Rihll, eds. 2002. Science and Mathematics in Ancient Greek Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, K. D. 1984. Greek and Roman Technology. London: Thames & Hudson. Wikander, Ö., ed. 2000. Handbook of Ancient Water Technology. Leiden: Brill.

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MATHEMATICS AND NUMERACY The Greeks excelled at mathematics, a term they used, in fact, for all branches of learning, though more specifically for the science of equations, calculations, and so on, involving numbers. They likely acquired many of their mathematical skills from the older civilizations to the east and south, especially the Egyptians; Greek tradition said that the earliest of their mathematicians, the philosopher Thales, studied in Egypt. Although mathematics never developed as important a following among them as did literary studies, nevertheless, mathematics and numeracy played vital roles in the practical and intellectual worlds of the ancient Greeks. No doubt the most famous proponent of math among the Greeks was the philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (second half of the sixth century BCE). He was fascinated by the relationship he perceived between the exact lengths of strings on a lyre and the musical notes produced by plucking strings of different measurements. Musical notes, he came to understand, could be calculated and music thus reduced to numbers. Many of our basic musical concepts today, such as harmonics, octaves, and so on, apparently come from the investigations of Pythagoras and his pupils into the mathematics of tonal qualities. As in music, so in everything else, Pythagoras advocated going beyond the Greek tradition of speculating about why things are the way they are to actually measuring everything in nature to understand its functioning better. The Pythagorean emphasis on mathematics had perhaps the greatest impact on the thinking of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427–347 BCE), who similarly saw the operation of perfect math in his imagining of how the universe worked, and of how humans should live. Various mathematicians attended his school in Athens and assisted in the instruction of other pupils, which produced a ripple effect of interest in mathematics that passed down through later generations of Greeks, especially the well-educated ones. What we know of Pythagorean and Platonic mathematics illustrates how mathematical study was typically approached in the world of the ancient Greeks. They regarded it as a sort of apprenticeship, not much different than was the case with any other techne¯, or skill. As a result, they passed down mathematical knowledge by word of mouth and tended to record the conclusions of mathematical operations, rather than the detailed methods employed in those operations. Outside of the clues provided by surviving mathematical tables and school texts in various media, and inscribed numbers at construction sites (like the late sixthcentury BCE Eupalinus tunnel on Samos, where calculations of distance and so on seem to have been made on the walls themselves), modern scholars are often left speculating on the step-by-step process of ancient Greek mathematical operations.

Science and Technology: Mathematics and Numeracy

The best evidence for mathematical processes among the Greeks comes from the works of their renowned experts across many generations. Autolycus of Pitane (late fourth century BCE), for instance, pursued spherical mathematics, that is, the properties of rotating spheres and their parallel sections, as applicable to astronomy. Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287–212 BCE) worked to calculate the square root of 3 and the limits for the value of π and developed a system of numeration based on powers of 100,000,000. Diophantus of Alexandria (third century CE) developed his own unique set of symbols to work out what today would be called algebraic operations, including polynomial equations for solving as many as four unknowns. Greek scholars of mathematics even developed methods that approximated trigonometry and calculus. Yet such mathematical expertise remained rare in the Greek world, the privilege of a relatively small group of well-educated individuals across time. Despite the pleas of Pythagoras, Plato, and others, numeracy among the ancient Greeks appears to have varied quite widely, tied to the circumstances, education, and interests of particular individuals and of particular locales, and certainly not standardized in any way, as one would expect in modern nations. There definitely existed differences in status, and hence in sophistication of skills, among ancient Greek number users. Nevertheless, in the more democratic communities, where public service was assigned through a lottery system, at least a baseline skill level in mathematics seems to have been much more universal, something absolutely needed to satisfy one’s civic obligations. So, in Athens, for instance, playwrights could expect their audiences, numbering in the thousands, to recognize and understand explicit references to mathematical operations, whether involving counting with one’s fingers or with devices, such as the abacus. Indeed, archaeological and literary evidence shows that Greeks drew counting boards or abaci on almost any flat surface; read always from right to left, Greek abaci might employ a stepped decimal system (1, 10, 100, 1,000, etc.), multiples of 5s (1, 5, 10, 50, etc.), or a hexagesimal system (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60). A stone tablet from Salamis dating to the late fourth century BCE probably functioned as such a counting board; inscribed with acrophonic numerals, it includes symbols representing fractions for calculations of monetary values, such as obols and drachmas. Not until Roman times did the ancients rely on “manufactured” abaci with grooves or wires to hold the counters. Not only were abaci, therefore, not standardized in the world of the ancient Greeks, but numeral systems themselves existed in many local variations. Two systems did become fairly widespread, though. As early as the seventh century BCE, the Greeks of the Attic peninsula employed the acrophonic (beginning sound) system of numeral notation mentioned above, that is, the initial letter in

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the word for a number stood for the number itself. Thus, the pi in pente stood for 5, the delta in deka for 10, the aspirate eta in hekaton for 100, the chi in chilioi for 1,000, the mu in myrioi for 10,000; in this system, a vertical slash mark stood for 1, the letter omicron for zero (though Greek mathematicians did not regard zero as a placeholder as in modern, that is, Arabic, numeration), and the acrophonic symbols were combined in particular ways to indicate larger numbers (for instance, three deltas in a row meant 30 while a melded pi and delta meant 50). Greeks from across the Aegean basin would have gained familiarity with the Attic acrophonic notation since the Athenians used it in their imperial inscriptions, such as lists of expected financial tribute, wherever they established hegemony in the fifth century BCE. Since at least that same time period, Greeks in Ionia employed an alphabetic numeral notation, that is, the letters of the alphabet stood, in sequence, for numbers. Hence, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon represented, respectively, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, while zeta, eta, and theta represented, respectively, 7, 8, and 9. The letters iota through pi stood, respectively, for the number 10 and its multiples through 80, while the letters rho through omega stood, respectively, for the number 100 and its multiples through 800. Some of the symbols used, such as stigma for 6, qoppa for 90, and sampi for 900, derived directly from Phoenician, suggesting a much older heritage for alphabetic numeration among the Greeks; similarly, unit fractions were expressed by placing an apostrophe after the letter that stood for the quotient, as in Egyptian numeration. In alphabetic notation, Greeks had particular symbols for one-half and two-thirds and wrote larger fractions as addition operations of unit fractions. To indicate larger numbers in this system of notation, an alpha with a dash underneath would mean 1,000, a beta with a dash underneath would mean 2,000, and so on; a capital mu stood for 10,000 and letters written above it indicated multiples of ten thousand (such as a delta above mu, that is, 40,000). Once again, the letter omicron, which typically stood for 70 in this system, might be specially used as a zero, having over it a dash; once again, as in the acrophonic system, alphabetic numeration did not use place value, but simply listed the proper letters in sequence to indicate the desired number, for instance, phi-nu-epsilon for 555. Still, the alphabetic method of numeration, perhaps because of its ease of use, especially in terms of needing fewer symbols to construct larger numbers, became the most widespread numerical system in the Greek world from the third century BCE onward. The available evidence, literary and epigraphic, certainly indicates wide public awareness of mathematics among the Greeks, beyond the more abstract speculative math in the schools of philosophy and astronomy. Inscriptions put up in the centers of Greek cities by local authorities recorded public accounts, loans, tribute, and so on, practical applications of mathematics crucial to civic and business life;

Science and Technology: Medicine

land measurement, construction, engineering, town planning, military operations, astronomical investigations, and even theoretical discussions among ancient Greek scholars required even more complex forms of math. See also: Arts: Music; Philosophy, Platonic; Temple Architecture; Economics and Work: Banking; Taxation; Trade; Weights and Measures; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Alphabet; Astronomy; Calendars; Education; Geometry; Machines; Time-Reckoning FURTHER READING Barker, A. 2007. The Science of Harmonics in Classical Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cuomo, S. 2001. Ancient Mathematics. London and New York: Routledge. Dilke, O. A. W. 1987. Mathematics and Measurement. London: British Museum. Heath, T. L. 1921. A History of Greek Mathematics. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heath, T. L. 1964. Diophantus of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra. New York: Heath Press. Knorr, W. R. 1986. The Ancient Tradition of Geometrical Problems. Boston: Dover. Netz, R. 1999. The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Netz, R. 2004. The Works of Archimedes: Translation and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neugebauer, O. 1957. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. 2nd ed. New York: Dover. Neugebauer, O. 1975. A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. Richardson, W. F. 2004. Numbering and Measuring in the Classical World. 2nd ed. Bristol: Bristol Phoenix Press. Rihll, T. E. 1999. Greek Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MEDICINE In the world of the ancient Greeks, there was neither one approach to the art of medicine nor one definition of medical knowledge. Instead, the fields of medicine were just as varied as other technical and intellectual pursuits among the Greeks, such as the many branches of philosophy. Moreover, the practitioners of the medical arts, from laypeople to priests to self-styled professionals, differed greatly in terms of training, experience, and goals. Most ancient Greeks would have been familiar themselves, or their neighbors would have been, with traditional methods of healing, using what might today be referred to as folk remedies handed down through the family and community as well as similarly age-old techniques of surgery; much of this collective knowledge would have transcended historical time (going back into the Bronze Age of Greece

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and beyond) and the geographical boundaries of “Greece” (having passed into Greek culture through trade and other contacts with Egypt and the Middle East). Any experienced person might thus have handled a variety of therapies and procedures within or across what today would be considered the professional domains of medicine, serving as a sort of general practitioner of the healing arts. A record of more specialized healing among the Greeks goes back to the time of Homer at least, where one sees his heroes (especially Machaon and Podalirius, sons of Asclepius) engaged in battlefield medicine to address the wounds of handto-hand combat. There would likely always have been men with practical experience of this sort within the ranks of most Greek armies, either soldiers themselves or civilians recruited to serve in the special capacity of healer. Treatment of the war-wounded, then, could have established someone as one sort of medical specialist. Others proved themselves expert in particular techniques; for instance, there were those who were called in just to set broken bones. Greeks would have regarded any of the above practitioners of hands-on medicine, whether generalists or specialists, in the same way as they would have regarded artisans; these were individuals who had mastered a techne¯, a particular skill, thanks to experience and training from others who knew what to do. They did not go to school to learn medical arts or receive certification to prove their qualifications. Instead, they attained medical competency through what we would today refer to as vocational training; medical skills were passed down through generations from one “expert” to another. Another type of healing in the Greek world would have been found at the sanctuaries dedicated to particular gods and heroes. Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, was honored in a number of places, especially on the island of Cos. Pilgrims with various ailments came from across the Greek territories to consult the priests there on what might cure them and especially to receive the healing attention of the god himself. Indeed, in the hall of Asclepius on Cos it was believed that sleeping patients were visited by the god, who either fixed them up or provided in their dream state the cure that they sought; Greeks referred to this healing sleep as enkoime¯sis, what Romans called incubation. Certainly, many thousands of Greeks through the ages believed in such faith healing, as illustrated most tangibly by all the votive and thank offerings placed in shrines of Asclepius in various parts of the Greek world. At the same time, priests at these locales definitely engaged in medical procedures on the pilgrims, either after the latter had reported the curative message of their dreams or even during their sleeping, which the priests may have in fact induced through the administering of drugs (in the same way modern doctors employ anesthesia). Over the years, simply by such experience with so many pilgrims and methods of trial and error,

Science and Technology: Medicine

Greek healing priests thus amassed quite a bit of accurate medical knowledge and practical skill. Ironically, it appears to have been on the island of Cos that some Greek physicians first began to insist on the removal of superstition and magic from the practice of medicine; they consciously rejected supernatural causes of illness or disease in favor of wholly natural ones, capable of being discerned, understood, and treated by human skill alone. Names like Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460–c. 370 BCE) and Alcmaeon of Croton (c. 500 BCE) come to mind here. The extant casebooks of the Hippocratic doctors on Cos, contained within the sixty or so texts belonging to what is called the Hippocratic Corpus, record lots of real diagnoses and genuinely scientific cures among a wide variety of medical topics. This empirical approach to medicine nonetheless never became the only or even the standard approach, as ancient Greek patients would seek out the services of Hippocratic physicians to address some conditions and visit healing-priests for others. The choice belonged to the individual patient (Greek governments did not involve themselves for the most part in health care, except in a few cases to give their stamp of approval to particular physicians), and Greek patients seem to have been quite eclectic in their pursuit of medical care across their lifetimes and across the generations. Indeed, even Hippocratic doctors themselves sought guidance from the gods from time to time. Moreover, the empiricism of Hippocratic medicine was matched by a blinding obsession with “logical” paradigms derived from philosophical speculation, such as the complicated humoral theory put forward by the philosopher Empedocles of Akragas (c. 493–c. 432 BCE). Working from the analogy that the universe consisted of four elements (water, air, fire, and earth), he speculated that the human body contained four chymoi, or humors, bodily fluids (blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm) that had to be in proper balance in order for the body to be healthy; any imbalance of the humors would lead to illness. Since Greek physicians had no knowledge or even suspicion of the existence of microorganisms, they regarded illness as caused entirely by internal factors, except as these might be mitigated or worsened by the effects of climate or diet on the humoral system. Some Hellenistic physicians, like Asclepiades of Bithynia (second/first centuries BCE), did place lifestyle (especially exercise) and diet ahead of the theory of humors altogether. Most did not, however, and so attempted to redress a perceived imbalance of humors in various ways, for instance, by applying heated leeches to the skin in order to remove some of the patient’s blood. Fairly common to all brands of healer in the Greek world was the practice of surgery, but ancient Greek patients would have been reluctant to allow even healing-priests to operate on them. Ancient Greek surgeons used instruments very

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much like the tools employed by ancient Greek carpenters, such as chisels, saws, strap drills, and so on, as well as knives, needles, probes, forceps, and so on. Hippocratic writers expected surgeons to be sharp-sighted, steady with and able to make good use of both their hands, and thus young to middle-aged. More important, though, surgeons did not put their patients to sleep or even numb their pain with drugs; instead, the latter were expected to stay wide-awake so that their reactions could assist the physician in judging the efficacy of his procedure and in achieving the desired outcome. This meant that Greek patients had to have terrific endurance, especially in the face of the attendant dangers of traumatic shock or even death. Greek doctors likely washed their hands and their instruments as a simple matter of cleanliness before engaging in surgical procedures, but they had no concept of sterilization. This did occur, if unintentionally, in the sealing of wounds, staunching of hemorrhages, and lancing of suspicious or unwanted growths through cauterization. Additionally, in the dressing of wounds, which usually involved applications of ointments, lineaments, or plasters made of honey and other food stuffs, Greek physicians did often utilize vinegar, wine, and other substances that had natural antiseptic properties. Professional “families” or “schools” of medicine, in the sense of traditions attached to particular places, physicians, or methodologies and passed down by way of lineage or apprenticeship, emerged in the Classical Age (490–323 BCE) and expanded a great deal in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE). There were the Asclepiads, trained in the tradition of Hippocrates, on the islands of Cos and Rhodes and nearby at Cnidus; the Erasistrateans and Herophileans, named for the most famous anatomists of Alexandria, who practiced medicine from a strong foundation in human biology; the Empiricists (like Philinos of Cos), who claimed that they were much more practical, experiential, and fact-based in their approach (grounded in keen personal observation and time-tested knowledge) than previous Rationalist/Dogmatist physicians (like Apollophanes of Seleucia Pieria), those who had allowed theory or dogma to “cloud” their judgments and “impair” their medical practice; and the Methodists, practitioners of a sort of commonsense, therapeutic, holistic medicine founded upon lifestyle choices (an outgrowth of the teachings of Asclepiades). Well-to-do patrons or even entire communities sometimes purposely sought physicians from a particular tradition to serve their health care needs and often awarded them with local honors for a job well done. With the exception of Hippocrates, who achieved nearly legendary status in ancient times, surely the most famous physician of all Greek and Roman history was Galen of Pergamum (second century CE). Not only did he rise to become court doctor to the Roman imperial family, but he wrote prolifically on virtually all subjects in the medical arts, eclipsing, when not synthesizing, the theories and

Science and Technology: Medicine

practices of his predecessors. Subsequent medicine owed its form and function largely to Galen. Galen worked in urban environments in a Mediterranean world that had become culturally Hellenized and in which elite Greek physicians had achieved a certain status; it was still a world in which people with a very wide range of medical backgrounds could claim to be doctors, perpetuating the danger of hiring a “quack” or “charlatan.” Just as today, the residents of the major urban centers of the Greek territories had available to them the greatest variety of health care and the “latest” methods in “professional” medicine. Outside such locales, and even in their poorer neighborhoods, the traditional healing arts of ages past continued to flourish. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Economics and Work: Apothecaries/ Pharmacology; Midwives and Wet Nurses; Family and Gender: Abandonment and Abortion; Childbirth and Infancy; Fashion and Appearance: Bathing/Baths; Hygiene; Food and Drink: Poisons and Toxic Foods; Housing and Community: Health and Illness; Religion and Beliefs: Magic; Temples, Shrines, and Sacred Groves; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Cosmology; Experimentation and Research; Zoology; Primary Documents: “Hippocrates” on Diagnosis and Observation of Illnesses (Late Fifth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Bertman, S. 2010. The Genesis of Science: The Story of the Greek Imagination. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Conrad, L., M. Neve, V. Nutton, et al. 1995. The Western Medical Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dean-Jones, L. 1994. Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hankinson, R. J. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, H. 1998. Hippocrates’ Woman. London and New York: Routledge. Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield. 1983. The Presocratic Philosophers. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lennox, J. G. 2001. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1970. Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle. New York: Random House. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1973. Greek Science after Aristotle. New York: W. W. Norton. Longrigg, J. 1993. Greek Rational Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Majno, G. 1975. The Healing Hand. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mayhew, R. 2004. The Female in Aristotle’s Biology: Reason or Rationalization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge.

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NAVIGATION Although it may be difficult to determine the precise navigational methods of the ancient Greeks before the availability of their writings from the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), certainly archaeological evidence of trade going back to the Bronze Age (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE) reveals that Mycenaean Greeks traveled eastward to Egypt and the Levant and westward at least as far as Spain and perhaps farther into the North Atlantic. By definition, then, the ancient Greeks long possessed excellent abilities in plotting their course at sea from destination to destination, what Classical Greeks (490–323 BCE) would have referred to as nautike¯ techne¯. The first principle of ancient Greek navigation seems to have been to keep sight of land as much as possible and to memorize geographical landmarks and man-made ones (such as lighthouses), from which it would be relatively easy to plot the next leg of one’s course. The information contained in the various extant ancient periploi, descriptions of maritime travel routes in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and even out into the Atlantic north and south of the Straits of Gibraltar, derive from the real-life experiences of Greek seafarers and reveal the attention they gave to remembering such landmarks, their features, and the distances between them. Many times, their vessels simply hugged the coastline as they went. In the Aegean Sea, land was never far out of sight, whether the mainland, islands, or mountains. Clear conditions prevailed for much of the sailing season (roughly from the spring equinox to the fall equinox), but some days would have witnessed a low-level haze created by rising air temperatures as well as the winds blowing fine particles of dust over the water. This could have reduced visibility down to not much better than six miles. With some land still out there to be spotted though, ancient Greek seafarers compensated for such difficulties by sending crew members climbing up the mainmast; from high atop it, they could usually get their sight bearings. When traveling farther out at sea, Greek navigation estimated direction based on the position of the noonday Sun and relied on triangulation. According to Greek tradition, the philosopher Thales of Miletus (sixth century BCE) developed methods for calculating distance from shore by utilizing the geometry of triangles. On clear nights, Greeks going back to Homeric times at least reckoned by the Moon in place of the Sun and located their position by triangulating on the pole

Science and Technology: Navigation

star, using the Big Dipper to mark north. Anaximander of Miletus (sixth century BCE) is sometimes credited with developing a prototype astrolabe, a device for triangulation with reference to celestial objects, but a true astrolabe was the work of Hellenistic astronomers, like Apollonius of Perga (second century BCE). Estimates of latitude could be achieved based on the zenith altitude of particular stars or constellations (especially the Bear, Arcturus, Pleiades, and Orion) relative to certain parts of the ships’ rigging and the mainmast as a pointer, or by using a dioptra, an angle measurer simpler in design than the astrolabe. Of course, the passing phases of the Moon and the locations of the constellations relative to the horizon were also used to estimate the timing of a sea voyage. Despite the fact that the Mediterranean region has minimal tides, an ancient Greek navigator (usually referred to as a kuberne¯te¯s, though the Greeks had many words for such expert sailors) still had to learn the various currents, rough spots, and obstacles within the sea itself. Sometimes such hazards could be hard to spot from the rear deck of a ship, which was where the helmsman positioned himself for steering his vessel (by means of one or two long rudders attached to a complex guide-rope system). He or someone else on board might have to climb the mainmast (again!) to sight undersea risks or danger signs. In addition, a Greek helmsman did not want to bring his ship too close to shore for fear of underwater shoals or reefs, especially when nearing harbors, or strong undertow currents, especially when nearing river deltas. So, besides sighting from the mainmast, he would take soundings with a lead weight attached to a long rope line. The weight would sink to the bottom, the depth telling the navigator how close he likely was to the shoreline. Further help was provided by the soft wax he placed inside a cavity at the bottom of the lead; when it hit the sea floor, sand and silt stuck to the wax. An experienced navigator would be able to discern from inspecting the collected material not only how far he was from shore or underwater obstacles but even which particular shoreline his ship was approaching, since the sand or silt would be different in different locales. Naturally, the winds also played a major role in ancient Greek navigation. Even during the good sailing season, these were not always cooperative. The Etesian winds within the Aegean, known today as the Meltemi, blow at that time from north to south, helpful for those sailing in that general direction, but making it difficult, if not impossible, for those moving opposite their track. Similar winds blow in the Adriatic, Ionian, and Tyrrhenian Seas to the west of Greece. In ancient times, as today, these winds come up without warning, especially in the afternoon, and last for variable lengths of time. To make the best of such conditions, most Greek vessels by Classical times, no matter how large or small or of what type, were equipped with square mainsails (on one to three masts) as well as oars for propulsion with the winds or during lulls,

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respectively. Additionally, lateen or triangular sails on foremasts allowed improved steering and maneuverability. Good navigators kept close track of the winds. They learned the directions of the four principle winds (Boreas, “North,” Notos, “South,” Zephyrus, “West,” and Euros, “East”) as well as the eight intermediary winds. Memorizing their “feel” and the relation of one’s ship to them literally created a mental compass for the skillful navigator to follow! Even more necessary, and perhaps more challenging, was the mastery of the monsoon winds, which Greeks in the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE) learned to utilize in sailing back and forth safely between Egypt and India. Greek navigators also kept a sharp weather eye. After years of experience, they could literally feel impending weather conditions. They needed to because clear skies in the summer could quickly turn to terrible storms. Greek warships with their lower draughts were especially at risk if caught in a storm out in the open sea; Greek merchant vessels, which were built with higher sides, could handle open seas better. Fortunately, the shores of the Mediterranean region possessed lots of natural harbors, which meant lots of safe places to shelter from adverse weather— if spotted in a timely fashion by the navigator. Without using charts or maps (even though fairly good maps with coordinates of latitude and longitude for thousands of locations existed by the late first/early second century CE thanks to the cartographer Marinus of Tyre), the ancient Greeks navigated in cooperation with tidal, wind, and weather conditions. The primary sailing routes thus followed the contours of the natural environment. Navigating them was not a skill taught in schools, but rather an expertise acquired over time through apprenticeship and much experience. See also: Economics and Work: Carpentry; Piracy and Banditry; Trade; Travel; Politics and Warfare: Navies; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Exploration; Geography; Geometry; Ships/Shipbuilding FURTHER READING Brodersen, K. 1999. Mastering the World: Ancient Geography. London and New York: Routledge. Burstein, S. M. trans. and ed. 1989. Agatharchides of Cnidos: On the Erythraean Sea. London: The Hakluyt Society. Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carpenter, R. 1966. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules. New York: Delacorte Press. Cary, M., and E. H. Warmington. 1963. The Ancient Explorers. London and New York: Penguin. Casson, L. 1989. Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Science and Technology: “Paper”-Making Casson, L. 1994. Travel in the Ancient World. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Casson, L. 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Coates, J., S. K. Platis, and T. Shaw, eds. 1990. Trireme Trials 1988. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Cunliffe, B. 2001. The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek. New York: Walker. Dilke, O. A. W. 1985. Greek and Roman Maps. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Huntingford, G. W. B. trans. 1980. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. London: The Hakluyt Society. Lewis, M. J. T. 2001. Surveying Instruments of Greece and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, J. S., with J. F. Coates. 1996. Greek and Roman Oared Ships, 399–30 B.C. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Morrison, J. S., and R. T. Williams. 1968. Greek Oared Ships, 900–322 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morton, J. 2001. The Role of the Physical Environment in Ancient Greek Seafaring. Leiden: Brill. Reed, C. M. 2003. Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shipley, G. 2011. Pseudo-Skylax’s Periplous: The Circumnavigation of the Inhabited World. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Taub, L. 2004. Ancient Meteorology. London and New York: Routledge. Tilley, A. F. 2004. Seafaring on the Ancient Mediterranean. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.

“PAPER”-MAKING Ancient Greek society needed lots of writing material for its plays, poems, histories, philosophy books, scientific treatises, and so on, not to mention its private correspondence and public records. Among the writing materials that they employed, the Greeks had papyrus and parchment, which together we might refer to as “paper.” The Greeks did not themselves practice the art of making writing material from papyrus; rather, they seem to have purchased their stock of such paper (called biblos in their language) from the Egyptians from at least the sixth century BCE; the Egyptians had been manufacturing papyrus paper since at least 3000 BCE and exporting it beyond their kingdom since at least 1100 BCE, so the Greeks appear to have been late in jumping on board. The Egyptians grew high-quality, domesticated papyrus in protected areas of the Nile delta, where wild papyrus plants grew generally and could be harvested in abundance; under the Ptolemies, the Macedonian rulers of Egypt in Hellenistic times, as under the Pharaohs in generations before them, papyrus belonged to the king as a monopoly. The Ptolemaic dynasty

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gradually permitted privately owned papyrus fields as well, and this continued into Roman times. To begin the manufacture of writing material from papyrus, the outer bark of the harvested plant was removed (and used to make rope) and the stalks cut open. Workers then patiently peeled apart the inner layers in the lower portion of the plant and laid them out in a crosshatch pattern on a wooden board; these they immersed in a diluted solution of lime to breakdown the fibers and release the natural gluey juices of the plant. Pressure was then applied to the soggy product in a sort of press, where the layers cemented together. When sun-dried, the end result was a sheet of material either of fine enough quality to be used as writing paper or of a lesser quality to be used as packaging. Not surprisingly, different workshops in different parts of the Nile delta achieved reputations for producing different qualities of paper. The length of a papyrus sheet depended on the height of the plant harvested, typically 12 to 16 inches, while the widths could vary much more, usually between 6 and 7 inches. A glue made of flour paste was applied to the wide sides of sheets to stick them together into a long roll or scroll of about thirty sheets in length, roughly 11 feet long; many times they doubled this roll to upwards of 20 feet, and sometimes rolls were manufactured as much as 50 or 60 feet in length, often attached to a stick at one end to assist in unrolling. The Greeks used the same word for an entire roll of papyrus, biblos, as they did for the material out of which it was made. Scholars at the Museum of Alexandria in Hellenistic times began to slice up longer scrolls into segments; each was called a tomos, which we would call a “volume.” The interior surface, or recto, of a roll followed the horizontal grain of the papyrus strips, making it easier to write upon, as compared to the vertical grain of the verso, or outside surface; the inside surface was also more smoothed or polished during the manufacturing process, which further aided in writing on that side. Writing implements of reed or metal dipped in lampblack worked best with papyrus, which was unrolled to the right to reveal more writing surface, rolling up with the left to conceal what had already been written. Writing proceeded from left to right, but in blocks; one papyrus sheet of the roll was thus used up before proceeding to the next sheet. In Socrates’ time, a standard papyrus scroll of 11 feet cost about two drachmas, which was not that expensive. In addition, scrolls were durable for literally hundreds of years, so they were frequently used and reused, that is, written upon, erased by abrasive scrubbing, and written upon again; we call these palimpsests. This reduced costs in having to purchase a lot of writing material. Although they may not have engaged in the processing of papyrus for writing material, the Greeks themselves, especially those living along the western coast of Turkey, excelled in the manufacturing of parchment. The English word parchment

Science and Technology: “Paper”-Making

(  pergamena in Latin), in fact, derives from the town of Pergamum in Asia Minor, renowned from the early second-century BCE onward for producing the highest quality parchment (known in Latin and English as vellum). For this writing material, made from animal skin (diphthera), the Greeks needed large herds of sheep, goats, and cattle; in fact, they selected especially the skins of lambs, kids, and calves. The process of turning that skin into “paper” began with carefully scraping it to remove all tissue, fat, and hair. After that was done, the Greeks treated the skin in a slaked quicklime solution, which left it cleaner and more malleable. Stretching out the skin on a wooden frame to give it the desired overall shape, they applied pumice stone to smooth it and whitened it by applying gypsum, talcum, more lime, or egg-white. The finished product still had a darker side (the outside of the skin) and a lighter side (the inside of the skin), but, unlike papyrus, both sides could be used for writing purposes. This made parchment a far more versatile form of “paper” and contributed further to the competition in “paper”-making between the Attalids of Pergamum and the Ptolemies of Egypt. Parchment turned out to be more expensive to manufacture than papyrus, but its greater durability across varied climatic conditions allowed it to supersede papyrus. During the second century CE, sheets of parchment bound together went to make up the new form of “book” that Romans called a codex, the direct ancestor of today’s books. Before papyrus or parchment, the ancient Greeks made use of many other writing materials. For public documents on long-term or permanent display, they engraved writing on large tablets of bronze or stone; on a more temporary basis, they wrote on whitened wooden boards. They took bits of pottery (ostraca) and inscribed or painted on them correspondence, household accounts, and even votes in elections, while they made small tablets out of lead, also for letters, but primarily for writing used in magical ceremonies. Finally, they cut wood into rectangles, coated these tablets in wax, sometimes beeswax mixed with carbon to blacken it, and inscribed their writing into the wax. A number of these waxed tablets, or deltoi, could be bundled together in twos (diptychs), threes (triptychs), and more (polyptychs), and could easily be reused for personal or official purposes by simply smoothing over the wax and inscribing something else on it afresh. The Greeks never gave up using these alternatives to “paper.” Still, their demand for papyrus and eventually parchment meant the production in Egypt and Asia Minor of millions of scrolls of “paper” every year for the Greek market. See also: Science and Technology: Education; Libraries and Literacy FURTHER READING Lewis, N. 1974. Papyrus in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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The World of Ancient Greece Nicholson, P. T., and I. Shaw, eds. 2000. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parkinson, R., and S. Quirke. 1995. Papyrus. Austin: University of Texas Press. Roberts, C. H., and T. C. Skeat. 1987. The Birth of the Codex. London: British Academy.

PAPYRUS. See “PAPER”-MAKING PARCHMENT. See “PAPER”-MAKING PHYSICS In modern science, physics may be defined as the study of matter and energy, their characteristics and their interactions. For the ancient Greeks, physics comprised all study of what exists naturally, and so cast a much wider scientific net. Still, we might narrow down the most important aspect of ancient physics by remembering that the earliest Greek philosophers sought to identify the first principles or elements of the cosmos and how they behaved. In doing so, they were investigating the material essence of nature, what they called physis, from which the term physics derives its name and origin. The cosmologist Thales of Miletus (sixth century BCE) started this field of study, according to Greek tradition, when he began to theorize about the essential basis of the universe and came to the conclusion, as a result of his observations, that it had to be water. From Thales then proceeded the many speculations among Greek scientists on the “cosmic stuff,” from Anaximander of Miletus’ notion of “the infinite substance” to Anaxagoras of Clazomenae’s “infinity of seeds,” from Empedocles of Akragas’ four “roots” (fire, air, earth, water) to Democritus of Abdera’s “atoms.” Empedocles (fifth century BCE) not only introduced the theory of the four elements but also asserted that these were in a constant state of flux under the influence of the twin forces “love” and “strife.” In this, he was building upon the logos, the essential operating program of the universe, as identified by his predecessor, Heraclitus of Ephesus. The latter had proposed that “all things flow” and that “all things are one.” In other words, there is an eternal unity and balance amidst all matter; every material thing, every force (even every human idea) requires its opposite and vice versa. At the same time, everything in nature is constantly changing, which means that all things are transforming right before our eyes, including ourselves. It would not have taken much, then, for followers of Heraclitus, or Empedocles, to comprehend the modern concept of matter transforming into energy. By the same

Science and Technology: Physics

token (and perhaps building on the notion of the Earth in a state of balance present in the teachings of Anaximander, as well as the notion of opposites in the teachings of Heraclitus), followers of Empedocles would understand the modern concepts of gravity, magnetism, and polarity building upon his proposition that the processes of change humans perceive in the natural world come about through the powers of attraction and repulsion. Neither Heraclitus nor Empedocles saw the flux in the material universe as ever stopping, just as they saw it as having always been. Their followers would have thus grasped the modern theories of conservation of mass and energy. In the following century, the philosopher Aristotle of Stagira attempted to synthesize the views of his predecessors and especially to build upon the teachings of Empedocles, which seem to have become the most commonly accepted among scholars and learned Greeks in general. Aristotle composed a treatise entitled Physics in which he discussed how the four elements combine to form what we experience with our senses, substances of a homogeneous nature, like bone or sand, that then become the building blocks, through natural processes, of all the more complex objects, like a skeleton or a stone. This building process allows humans to investigate and understand the specific or particular aspects of matter and their general kinds. Aristotle also took on the followers of Democritus, disagreeing with the theory that atoms move around and combine with one another in empty space. Instead, Aristotle insisted, there is no such thing as empty space within or outside material objects; there is only matter, and matter contains within it its pattern or form—in modern terms, its programming—and this programming gives matter its meaning, identity, and purpose. In this line of thought, the matter of the cosmos is just one piece in the puzzle of causation. It is acted upon by the forces of natural processing, which he termed “cold” or “heat,” and by motion, whether innate (what naturally drove things up or down, which modern physics would associate with mass and gravity), forced (impelled by outside energies), or voluntary (such as humans exert when they walk or run). Many learned Greeks came to agree with the descriptions of the natural world from Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle, and especially with their distinction between the world “here below” and the world “up above.” They regarded the heavenly bodies as being of different material substance, something literally lighter (as though they were floating above the Earth’s “heavy” center of gravity), perfect, and changeless. Heraclitus and Empedocles conceived of this celestial substance as some special form of firey air, which they termed aether. Unlike astronomy, then, physics, in the minds of such men, should concern itself only with our changeable, terrestrial world. Such a line of thought influenced the physics of later philosophers. The Stoics, for instance, asserted that the entire visible universe consisted of various sorts

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of matter, some “finer,” some more “coarse.” They did not see any role for empty space. They spoke of forces of “passivity” and “activity” generating change and motion within a cosmos whose first essence was fiery pneuma (breath). Epicurean philosophers, to give a different example, defended the teachings of Democritus and other atomists. They regarded “space” as the location for all matter; in this sense, the atoms were literally “in” space. Epicureans and atomists generally taught that atoms naturally moved downward, but also randomly swerved to combine with one another; in doing so, they released “emissions” that produce our sensory experiences of the material universe. Straton of Lampsacus (third century BCE), despite being a successor of Aristotle as the leader of the Lyceum after Theophrastus, found himself in sympathy with the atomists, having conducted demonstrations to prove that empty space, especially in the form of an enclosed vacuum, was a reality. Building upon atomism, then, Straton argued that light and heat pass through air, water, and other material objects in various ways through the particular void spaces within those atomic-based objects. He also found himself in opposition to Aristotle’s notion that the heavens and the earth consisted of different elemental substances; in his view, the same four elements served as the basis of the entire visible world, “here below” consisting of all four elements, “up above” only of fire because it naturally rises as the lightest element. Similarly, the military engineer, Philo of Byzantium (third/second centuries BCE), followed the atomic theory of matter in his explanation of how heating bronze plates increases the void among the atoms of which they are made, making the plates more resilient to pressure (as when utilized in a catapult). When hammered and cooled, the same plates become less resilient because their constituent atoms had been packed closer together by force, the void among them having been reduced. Other scientist-engineers like him, including Ctesibius of Alexandria (third century BCE) and Heron of Alexandria (first century CE), came to understand many of the principles of motion and energy essential to modern physics from their work in pneumatics, the science of the relations among compressed air, heat, steam, and vacuums. They tested their understanding in the construction of machines, for instance, siege engines, which demanded the mathematical working out of ballistics (ratios of projectile weights to their distance thrown, speculations on the cause of a projectile slowing down in motion or falling at certain times, and so on). The contemporary of Ctesibius, Archimedes of Syracuse, made famous advancements in the field of physics, with his proofs in statics, for instance, particularly his proof for specific gravity in hydrostatics, a notion whose essence had been recognized generations earlier even by Greek storytellers. Given a static, contained fluid, he proved that an object of the same weight as that volume of fluid

Science and Technology: Physics

would lie immersed or balanced within it. On the other hand, an object of less weight would appear above the fluid’s surface and, if forced into the water, would experience a buoyancy effect, being pushed upwards by a force equal to the difference between the weight of the object and the weight of the fluid displaced by the object. Furthermore, an object of greater weight than the fluid would sink to the bottom of the fluid and appear to weigh less within the fluid than it did outside of it. In these and many other ways, ancient Greek scientists explored the essential aspects of what moderns would identify as the field of physics. From their curiosity about “what is” through their development of complex theories and their construction of sophisticated machines, the ancient Greeks continued to push themselves to understand the composition and the functioning of the natural world, thereby laying the groundwork for much of what has been accomplished in the field of physics by subsequent generations. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Philosophy, Epicureans; Philosophy, Stoics; Politics and Warfare: Siege Technology; Religion and Beliefs: Pythagoreans; Science and Technology: Artificial Power; Astronomy; Cosmology; Engineering; Experimentation and Research; Geometry; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy; Time-Reckoning FURTHER READING Asmis, E. 1984. Epicurus’ Scientific Method. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Drachmann, A. G. 1963. Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Falcon, A. 2005. Aristotle and the Science of Nature: Unity without Uniformity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Farrington, B. 1961. Greek Science. Baltimore: Penguin. Freudenthal, G. 1999. Aristotle’s Theory of Material Substance. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Furley, D. 1987. The Greek Cosmologists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Judson, L., ed. 1991. Aristotle’s Physics. Oxford: Clarendon. Lindsay, J. 1974. Blast-Power and Ballistics: Concepts of Force and Energy in the Ancient World. London: Muller. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1987. The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pedersen, O. 1974. Early Physics and Astronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sambursky, S. 1956. Physical World of the Greeks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sambursky, S. 1959. Physics of the Stoics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Solmsen, F. 1960. Aristotle’s System of the Physical World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sorabji, R. 1983. Time, Creation and the Continuum. London: Duckworth.

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The World of Ancient Greece Sorabji, R. 1988. Matter, Space and Motion. London: Duckworth. Waterfield, R. 1989. Before Eureka: The Presocratics and Their Science. New York: St. Martin’s Press. White, K. D. 1984. Greek and Roman Technology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

SHIPS/SHIPBUILDING The engineering and construction of seafaring vessels in the world of the ancient Greeks varied and developed across the eras of their history. The Greeks learned a lot from the older civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians and Egyptians, but adapted what they learned to the particular needs of Greek trade, travel, and warfare. Preparation for the construction of seagoing vessels began well before their actually being built. Even if resources were easily at hand in the form of local forests (and for some parts of the Greek world, like Athens, this was certainly not the case), the timbers (typically pine, cedar, or fir) had to be felled, treated, shaped, and so on, at least two or three years in advance of their use. Then, shipwrights began construction with the keel, the main beam stretching along the bottom length of the ship, which they preferred to make from oak whenever possible (because of its greater resistance to water damage). From earliest times, the keel was formed (using techniques of heating and bending the wood) to curve upwards at each end; this tradition continued in the construction of merchant vessels throughout much of Greek history, but in the warships of later times, the keel was kept relatively level. The keel might be strengthened and enlarged by attaching additional beams, laid upon it above and below; upright posts might be inserted into large slots at the bow and at the stern of the keel, with more upright beams added to these posts (especially at the stern), their ends often carved in animal shapes. Once the keel was assembled, carpenters then began attaching the planking of the outer hull directly to it, an approach known as “shell-first.” Nails of bronze, copper, or iron joined the first, bottom planks (preferably of oak) to the keel. The carpenters cut stub mortises (shallow slots) into the edges of the planks, into which they inserted loose tenons of wood (also of oak, if available); to hold a tenon even more firmly in its mortise, the Greeks would drill a hole through the plank and the tenon and then hammer a wooden peg into the hole. Sometimes, this peg contained a nail in its center, thereby providing even greater reinforcement. Tenons protruded from the edges of the planks like a row of teeth and were themselves inserted into the mortises of still other planks (sometimes of oak, but more commonly of cedar, pine, or fir), the same techniques being used to join tenons and mortises firmly. With the hull of planking completed, shipwrights would interlace beams within the shell to form a sort of rib-cage design; much of this was done using

Science and Technology: Ships/Shipbuilding

larger mortise joints, but sometimes strong ropes of hemp or flax were used to tie planks to the inner ribs (just as in some cases they tied planks together, the very ancient technique of sewing or lacing ships, instead of mortising them). Rib beams reinforced both the outer hull and the keel. To strengthen the top edge of the hull, a wooden ridge capped the planking all around the vessel and a series of stout ropes (again usually of hemp or flax) just below that ridge tied the planking tight. Finally, workers layered the outer hull with pitch (especially along the seams) and paint, and sometimes lead sheets, to protect it as much as possible from water damage. Many Greek vessels had no decking, but in those that did, the ribs of the hull curved upwards to support the deck planking. Merchant ships might have a lower deck below the main deck, laid across the ribs and the keel for the storage of cargo or equipment. Warships might have partial decking (forward and aft) or full decking, and sometimes elevated platforms were erected at each end of the main deck, the platform astern being where the helmsmen, or kuberne¯te¯s, steered the vessel; in earlier times, this was done by means of one rudder, in later periods, by two long rudders attached to a complex guide rope system. To hold a ship in place out on the water, anchors were typically suspended from two openings resembling eyes on either side of the prow. Propulsion was achieved by use of sails or oars. Greek ships had mainsails, square in shape, attached to the mast and yardarm at the center of the vessel. Additionally, they might have a smaller foremast and aftmast for lateen or triangular sails to enhance maneuvering. As for ships’ oars, they ranged in length from 7 or 8 feet to as much as 57 feet, depending on the type of vessel. Men seated on benches along the port and starboard sides rowed the oars, which were usually attached by rings or ropes along the ship’s outer edge. The earliest Greek civilization, the Mycenaeans (c. 1700–c. 1100 BCE), possessed some quite skillful shipbuilders, since their vessels sailed all around the Mediterranean Sea and likely even along the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa to sell Mycenaean wares and seek natural resources. They made vessels longer and narrower than their Near Eastern forerunners, yet still of the shallow, very ancient galley type. Guided by means of a single stern rudder, Mycenaean ships were propelled using sails or by a single bank of as many as thirty oars rowed by as many as fifty crewmen. Homer described such ships as being used in fighting the Trojan War, a reflection backward from his own time in which warfare at sea was becoming more common among the Greeks. In fact, Mycenaean ships likely carried fighting men to battle sites and otherwise served primarily in maritime trade. The basic design of and technology for producing Mycenaean vessels evidently survived the collapse of that civilization and the ensuing Dark Age (c. 1100– c. 800 BCE) to reemerge in the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE) in the form of

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the triaconter (galley of thirty oarsmen) and especially the penteconter (galley of fifty oarsmen). Just about as long (close to 100 feet) and as wide (roughly 14 feet) as Mycenaean craft, and equally all-purpose, both the triaconter and the penteconter were built of sturdier stuff. Penteconters could achieve the velocity and had the agility needed to handle the rough currents of the Hellespont, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea, thereby opening up a huge region to Greek colonization and commerce. Greek colonization exploded across the Mediterranean world, and the consequent increase in trade as well as the escalation of military actions across the region, demanded improvements to the basic design of Greek ships. Vessels were enlarged to carry more cargo, more crew, and especially more rowers, as many as a hundred in the so-called hecatonters. By at least the late sixth century BCE, Greek shipwrights added to the ­galley-type vessel the round merchantmen often referred to as “barges” (holkades), broader (roughly 45 feet by 14 feet), taller, and much deeper in draft than the galley. Round ships had a single bank of oars (as few as four, but as many as twenty-five) for propulsion, but most often relied on their sail for wind power; they traveled slowly compared to the galleys, at about 6 miles per hour, but were capable of carrying 75 tons of cargo. In the Archaic Period, the Greeks turned to the premier shipbuilders of the ancient world, the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, who had developed a bireme (galley with two banks of oars one above the other), for the prototype of their most enduring ship type, the trireme. Triremes became the standard warships of the Mediterranean world for generations. Roughly 125 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 3.5 feet in draft, they required a crew of 170 oarsmen. These sat in three levels, one slightly above the other, to operate three banks of oars in a sort of outrigger configuration and together could achieve speeds ranging from 10 to 14 miles per hour. The fifth century BCE witnessed a greater variety of purposes for seagoing vessels and as a result greater variation in their design. By the late fifth or early fourth century, for example, Dionysius I, military dictator of the powerful Greek colony of Syracuse in Sicily, designed an even larger warship known as the pentereis. It weighed about 100 tons, stretched some 146 feet in length by 16 feet in width, and stood close to 10 feet above the waterline (with a similar draft below). Heavier and bulkier than the trireme, and less easily maneuvered, the quinquereme (its more familiar Roman name), powered by its 300 rowers in three tiers of oar banks (two at bottom, two in middle, one at top) could nonetheless achieve much greater rates of speed than the typical trireme. In addition, its design allowed a larger number of marines, perhaps as many as 170, to ride along for combat purposes. In the

Science and Technology: Ships/Shipbuilding

Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), even larger vessels were designed, in some cases just for show. The primary purpose of Greek warships, whether triremes or quinqueremes, came to be the disabling and sinking of enemy vessels by means of ramming, so Greek shipwrights designed the prows of their vessels to be stronger than any other part of the ship; this was done through a web of interlaced wooden beams that reinforced the prow, which stuck out in front of the vessel often in two parts. The upper part was fashioned like an animal’s head, usually that of a ram; the lower part, at the waterline, was called the embolon, or beak, and ended with a large tip cast out of bronze or iron and sometimes grooved to resemble teeth. By the third century BCE, the seaways of the Greek world were filled with all sorts of vessels. Besides the large galleys already described, there were the smaller versions like the quick and nimble keles (with four to ten rowers in a single bank of oars), the akatos (with thirty to fifty rowers, also in a single bank), and the lembos (with fifty rowers, some bireme in design); sailing ships with pointed prow and boxlike rear (kerkouros, kybaia, phaselos) joined the merchantmen, and many of these smaller vessels carried passengers. Cargo ships, modeled on the holkas, were being built larger and larger, capable of carrying from 100 to 400 tons in their holds. Indeed, by the time of Julius Caesar, the Greeks had created super cargo vessels, measuring some 180 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 43 feet tall, with three masts for sails and three decks, and deckhouses forward and aft; such ships could carry anywhere from 1,300 to 1,900 tons of cargo, including the stones or sand used as ballast. Seagoing vessels of all kinds required regular upkeep. Besides the helmsmen, rowers, marines, and officers, Greek warships in Classical (490–323 BCE) and Hellenistic times had from twenty to forty sailors (nautai) on board to maintain and rig the sails, plus shipwrights and carpenters to conduct other repairs, and so on. To aid in bailing water from a leaky vessel, some larger ships in Hellenistic times were even equipped with Archimedean screws and crews were trained in their operation. Frequent maintenance took place at the harbors of the Greek world. Probably the most famous was the main Athenian port of Piraeus with its three harbors (Kantharos, Zea, and Mounichia), each ringed by hundreds of ship sheds where vessels were hauled in for maintenance and repairs, not to mention the outdoor shipyards where vessel construction took place and the arsenals for the storage of equipment and tools. In addition to ancient writings and artworks, evidence from ancient shipwrecks (of which there were many between 600 and 200 BCE, and even more between 200  BCE and 100 CE) continues to provide modern scholars with a wealth of

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information about ships and shipbuilding in the world of the ancient Greeks. As a result, our understanding of this aspect of their daily lives deepens with each passing year. See also: Economics and Work: Carpentry; Masonry; Piracy and Banditry; Trade; Travel; Housing and Community: Infrastructure; Politics and Warfare: Navies; Science and Technology: Engineering; Exploration FURTHER READING Berthold, R. M. 1984. Rhodes in the Hellenistic Age. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Campbell, B., and L. A. Tritle, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Casson, L. 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press. Gabrielsen, V. 1994. Financing the Athenian Fleet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hale, J. R. 2009. Lords of the Sea. New York and London: Penguin. Jordan, B. 1975. The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Morrison, J. S., with J. F. Coates. 1996. Greek and Roman Oared Ships, 399–30 B.C. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Morrison, J. S., J. F. Coates, and N. B. Rankov. 2000. The Athenian Trireme. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, J. S., and R. T. Williams. 1968. Greek Oared Ships, 900–322 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reed, C. M. 2003. Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

STEAM POWER. See ARTIFICIAL POWER TIME-RECKONING The ancient Greeks knew many ways of telling time. They used oil lamps, for instance, designed to burn at a certain rate and thus mark the passage of time. They understood the casting of shadows by their own bodies in the sunlight as a measuring method for time. Even at night, they were not at a loss, since they carefully observed the rising and setting of the stars and the constellations along the horizon to mark the passage of time. The Greeks also reckoned time by means of sophisticated devices that they built, specifically the sundial and the water clock. As far back as the late sixth century BCE, the Greek scientist Anaximander of Miletus, so the story goes, “discovered” the sundial. Typically referred to as

Science and Technology: Time-Reckoning

gnoˉmoˉn by the Greeks (their term for the shadow pointer), the sundial, in fact, likely came into their world from the older civilizations of the Ancient Near East; the fifth-century BCE historian, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, certainly gave credit to the peoples of that region for teaching the Greeks the concept of dividing the day into twelve hours, especially through use of the gno¯mo¯n and the polos, the concave dial marked with shadow lines. Letters of the Greek alphabet served as the numbers for the hours on their sundials. Greek artisans produced sundials in four types. Extant evidence suggests that the cone-shaped or conical sundial was the most popular, itself a variation on the familiar hemispherical type; the latter also spawned a cylindrical variation. Typically rendered in stone but sometimes in bronze, these three types were best at mimicking the curvature of the sky and, therefore, the true course of the sun across it. The Greeks also made a planar type of sundial, the most challenging, since artisans struggled to project the curved solar motion onto a set of flat surface lines. The length of the shadow cast by a sundial pointer varies across the year, with longer shadows in the winter months and shorter in the summer months. The shadow reaching a certain time line on an ancient Greek sundial would not, therefore, have represented exactly the same hour of the day in different seasons of the year. Only on the autumnal and vernal equinoxes would the hour have been “true.” The Greeks understood all this and so typically approached time-reckoning with a sundial as an approximation. Yet, by the fourth century BCE, they apparently possessed fairly precise sundials, some that could additionally indicate the position of the Sun within the constellations of the zodiac, that is, “monthly” sundials, perhaps the invention of Eudoxus of Cnidus. By the Hellenistic Era (323–30 BCE), sundials must have been a widespread time-reckoning technology; over two dozen, dating mainly to the third century BCE, have been found on the island of Delos alone. The oldest surviving specimen of a Greek sundial comes from Oropos in the borderlands between Attica and Boeotia, specifically from the Amphiareion, the oracular shrine to the hero Amphiaraus, and dates to the later fourth century BCE. To tell time during the day or night, the ancient Greeks had the klepsydra, or water clock. Perhaps derived from earlier Babylonian and Egyptian examples, it followed a simple bucket-to-bucket outflow principle not different from an hourglass; water from one ceramic container would slowly pour through a spout at the bottom into another ceramic container below it, the latter marked with graduated lines to indicate the hour where the water level had reached. This sort of “mechanism” could be adjusted, either by placing a greater or lesser amount of water into the upper container or by regulating the size of the spout (and, therefore, the rate of outflow from it), to mark the passage of different lengths of time. For instance, a klepsydra set up in the law courts of Athens contained two choes of water and

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was thereby designed to last only about six minutes, the length of time allowed for a standard speech. Larger versions, though, could hold water for even longer; the Athenians used such a klepsydra to establish a standard day in the law courts (based on the length of the hour in winter, the “day” amounting to roughly nine and a half hours) and had another in the agora near the Heliaia (the law court of the thesmothetai) that contained some 1,000 liters of water and so could mark out an entire summer’s day at that latitude (about seventeen hours). In the Hellenistic Era, the Greek inventor Ctesibius of Alexandria also developed inflow klepsydrae (in which a constant amount of water could be maintained in the upper container by tapping into a city’s public water supply) and mechanical outflow klepsydrae. Inside the water tank of the latter, he attached floats to rack-and-pinion gears and cogwheels; as the floats moved downward with the outflow of the water inside, they transmitted that motion via the right-angle gearing system (originally developed by the famed Archimedes) to different sorts of gauges located on the outside of the tank, such as pointers that marked out lines on a graduated cylinder (divided into twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night) or mechanical representations of the risings of stars in proper sequence or the relative positions of stars, planets, and constellations at particular times of day, to accurately display the passage of time across the day. The ultimate horologion (time-reckoner) in the Greek world was perhaps the Tower of the Winds, erected near the Roman-era agora of Athens by the Macedonian designer Andronicus of Cyrrhus and dated by scholars to the second century BCE. Inside the octagonal building, a sophisticated mechanical inflow klepsydra operated, its workings still a puzzle to modern investigators; on the outside walls were carved complex sundials. The ancient Greeks eventually made use of gnoˉmoˉnes and klepsydrae to time just about anything, scientific or political, religious or military, openly public or intimately personal. Their cultural heirs, the ancient Romans, came to regard horologia as slave drivers; they had in their possession even portable sundials (like the so-called Ham Dial from Herculaneum). Yet even the Romans, like their Greek predecessors, did not conceive of measured time the way that most moderns do; they were much more flexible and vague in their approach to time. As an anonymous Greek epigram preserved in the Greek Anthology (10.43) states, “Six hours are enough for working. And the rest, when set out in letters [that is, zeta, eta, theta, and iota—recall they were used on horologia as numbers], say “Live” [zethi] to human beings!” Most Greeks, indeed, would have sympathized wholeheartedly with this sentiment. See also: Housing and Community: Urban Life; Science and Technology: Astronomy; Calendars; Geometry; Machines; Mathematics and Numeracy

Science and Technology: Vehicles FURTHER READING Gibbs, S. L. 1976. Greek and Roman Sundials. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hannah, R. 2009. Time in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge.

VEHICLES The ancient Greeks certainly did a lot of walking to get from one point to another. Greek farmers or artisans often owned donkeys (onoi) or mules (oreis) on which to ride and especially on which to carry their goods. Wealthier, particularly aristocratic, Greek men might own horses (hippoi) for riding (as well as racing) or might have servants who carried them to and fro in litters (diphroi, pheretra, phoreia). Vehicles (oche¯mata) were also on hand for movement, travel, and transport, their essential technologies going back millennia. Perhaps the simplest vehicle ancient Greeks utilized was the handcart (cheiramaxa). It was pulled or pushed by hand using two long poles, left and right, attached to the underframe of a flatbed made of wooden slats. The contents of the flatbed would be held in by three side panels (back, left, and right) made of wooden boards or of wickerwork. Greek farmers often used wickerwork carts (morgoi) for carrying chaff and straw from the fields at harvest time. The cheiramaxa was rolled along on two wooden wheels attached to an axle; the wheels might be of various types. Solid wheels were the oldest, simply circular slices of timber or built up out of three or four parallel wooden planks, glued, nailed, and/or notched together; such wheels had been in use since at least the third millennium BCE in the Ancient Near East. Spoked wheels were lighter in weight and offered greater resilience during travel. Wooden wheels with wooden hubs and wooden spokes began to be used in the Ancient Near East during the second millennium BCE, but did not become common among the Greeks until the Classical Age (490–323 BCE); these could vary in terms of number of spokes anywhere from four to a dozen (depending usually on the size and weight of the vehicle) and in terms of the wheel-rim construction (either one long piece of bent wood or multiple wooden segments joined together). In the meantime, the Greeks developed hollow wheels with crossbars in the form of the letter H; one sees these often depicted in artistic images of their wheeled vehicles. The more durable H-wheels and spoked wheels had metal rims, riveted to them in sections. The basic technology of the handcart was replicated with a bit more complexity in the construction of two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles pulled by draught animals. The Greeks usually referred to such carts or wagons as hamaxai and sometimes as zeugoi, the latter technically applying to the yoke of the draught animals.

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Most typical was the two-wheeled hamaxa, drawn by one or two donkeys or mules. These were designed in basically two main types. One resembled almost exactly the handcart, except that one pole instead of two extended forward from its flatbed to be attached by yoke and belly-bands, harnesses, horse collars, and bridles to the draught animals. The driver sat in the cart with legs outstretched or in lotus position, guiding his animal or animals by means of a pointed goad and long pole with a hook at the end. In these circumstances, he could transport himself or a few items of his goods to his destination; if he wanted to transport more, he would have to sit up front toward the draught team and pile his goods up behind him in the flatbed. One would have seen many of these hamaxai on the streets of Greek towns, out on the country roads and in the vineyards, and crossing steep, rocky terrain along the narrow pathways. Although it might be used for transporting goods, another type of two-wheeled hamaxa was more popular for transporting people in processions and on other special occasions. In this model, the driver (hamaxeus, hamaxe¯late¯s) sat up front with a backboard just behind him. The same backboard also supported his passengers, who sat facing the rear of the cart. During the torchlight procession on the night of a Greek wedding ceremony, the newlyweds often rode home together seated in just such a wedding cart, relatives, friends, and other members of the Terracotta oil flask, or lekythos, attributed to the wedding party singing and walkAmasis Painter depicting a cart in an Athenian ing along beside them. wedding procession, c. 550–530 BCE. An Athenian Greek cartwrights (hama­ bride and groom typically rode to and from their xope¯goi) also built four-wheeled wedding ceremony in a vehicle like this one—a simple platform supported on two H-spoked wheels hamaxai, harnessed sometimes yoked to a pair of donkeys and equipped with side to teams of mules (like the ape¯ne¯ rails and a footrest for the forward-facing passengers. noted by Homer) but more often (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Purchase, Walter of oxen (boës). The historians C. Baker Gift, 1956)

Science and Technology: Vehicles

Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon all speak of such wagons being used to carry arms and armor, food, drink, and other supplies during wartime; Xenophon also mentions their use in transporting the war-wounded, and King Priam of Troy employed such a wagon to bring gifts to the Greek warrior Achilles in exchange for the body of his dead son Hector, whom he then brought back to the city in the same hamaxa. Of course, in peacetime, four-wheeled hamaxai hauled all sorts of bulky or heavy items, like grain or wood, or large finished products, like furniture, among country villages and between the big urban environments. An especially stout version of the hamaxa, idiomatically referred to simply as the tetrakuklos (literally, “four-wheeler”) was constructed to carry stone blocks from quarry sites. Archaeologists have discovered wide-gauge wheel ruts even in the most remote parts of Greece, revealing lots of ancient traffic from heavy hamaxai there. Moreover, as the comic playwright Aristophanes once noted, such wagons carried passengers, too, like the Athenian women who sometimes rode in them to attend the Eleusinian Mysteries. From the cultures of the Ancient Near East, the Greeks learned about a covered wagon, the harmamaxa. The Persian nobles and kings especially made use of this carriage for the transport of their female relatives, but it also conveyed ambassadors or was used by Persian kings as a resting place while in transit. It had wooden sides going about halfway up from the flatbed; above was a frame for an awning and in between the sides and awning were curtains hung to give additional privacy. Unlike the Greek wagons, which had no pivoting fore-axle, the Persian covered carriage did, making it much more maneuverable on the road. Regardless of its practical features, the Greeks regarded the harmamaxa as a proof of Persian luxuriousness and refused to adopt it among themselves. They similarly judged their nomadic neighbors to the north, the Scythians, as “wagon dwellers” (hamaxobioi), which was seen by the Greeks as a sign of their primitiveness. Yet even the “civilized” Greeks sometimes fitted their carts and wagons with simple leather or cloth awnings for cover (called variously orophoi, peploi, or skenai), stretched over curved wooden frames and thus resembling the covered wagons of the American Old West. The most prestigious vehicles of ancient Greek culture were the chariots (harmata). Bronze Age warrior-nobles had fought from war chariots and engaged in hunting from chariots; the Mycenaeans actually inventoried and tracked all the parts needed to produce chariots. Their “descendants,” the heroes of Homeric epic, no longer fought from chariots, but still used them as cars to get to the battlefield. Even in later times, when they were no longer very practical for military purposes, harmata yet retained their high status as a unique possession of the elite and for their uses in religious processions. Racing chariots in funeral celebrations for the fallen members of the upper class remained a feature of Greek society from at least

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the time of Homer and, from the Archaic Period (c. 800–490 BCE), Greek citizenspectators expected to witness feats of daring speed (up to twenty miles per hour, but compare this to the top speed of maybe two miles per hour for ox carts!) from charioteers in the festival games honoring their gods. The Greek chariot, pulled by teams of two, three, or four horses attached by yoke, belly-bands, and harnesses to a central pole, was a lightweight (roughly fifteen pounds) and relatively flimsy vehicle, consisting of a small platform (made of bone and wood, glued or clamped together) rolling on an axle with two spoked wheels (the best hubs and spokes were of elm, the best rims of ash wood or poplar further strengthened by iron or bronze sheathing). The platform was equipped with railings (except for military chariots, which had wooden front and side panels) and the driver could stand at the front railing, within a protective metal hoop, or even sit on the front edge of the platform to guide the horses by means of reins and bridles. Variations on this basic design allowed a man or a woman to drive a chariot like a wagon, for transportation rather than racing. Indeed, the lightness and simple durability of harmata made them good “passenger” vehicles to use in the rough terrain of Greece. So, for instance, the dikuklos (two-wheeler) had much larger wheels compared to the racing or war chariots and an elevated, curved back seat attached to the rear railing on which a female driver could sit; a larger version, drawn by four horses instead of two, was equipped with an even bigger seat and accommodated a male driver with perhaps a wife or friend along with him. Among driving chariots, then, the Greeks differentiated between “models” for men and for women. The ancient Greeks expected a rough ride in their vehicles, whether carts, wagons, or chariots, because these had no suspension systems, no springs or shock absorbers, and made lots of noise, especially without lubricant (which would have involved an unprofitable waste of the available natural fats needed more for human survival). Nevertheless, in the rugged terrain of Greece, any help in getting from one point to another must have been seen as a benefit, and so the Greeks invested time, effort, and resources in building, maintaining, and using many wheeled vehicles. See also: Economics and Work: Agriculture; Carpentry; Metalworking; Trade; Travel; Family and Gender: Men; Women; Housing and Community: Infrastructure; Politics and Warfare: Aristocracies; Cavalry; Recreation and Social Customs: Class Structure and Status; Festivals; Horse Racing; Olympic Games; Panhellenic Games; Stadiums and Hippodromes; Religion and Beliefs: Eleusinian Mysteries; Science and Technology: Machines FURTHER READING Casson, L. 1994. Travel in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Science and Technology: Zoology Crouwel, J. H. 1981. Chariots and Other Means of Land Transport in Iron Age Greece. Amsterdam: Allard Pierson. Golden, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greenhalgh, P. A. L. 1973. Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humphrey, J. W. 2006. Ancient Technology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Humphrey, J. W., J. P. Oleson, and A. N. Sherwood, eds. 1998. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Landels, J. P. 2000. Engineering in the Ancient World. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Meijer, F., and O. Van Nijf. 1992. Trade, Transport and Society in the Ancient World: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Osborne, R. 1987. Classical Landscape with Figures. London: Cambridge University Press. Piggott, S. 1983. The Earliest Wheeled Transport from the Atlantic Coast to the Caspian Sea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Pritchett, W.  K., and H. Miller. 1980. Studies in Ancient Greek Topography: Part III (Roads). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

WATER POWER. See ARTIFICIAL POWER WIND POWER. See ARTIFICIAL POWER ZOOLOGY Ancient Greek poets, like Homer and Hesiod, said much about animal life, always seeing parallels between animal and human behaviors and drawing wise lessons from the example of animals. Almost a thousand years later, the ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea found animals quite intriguing, attributing to them spirit and reason not much different than human beings. Most Greeks probably did not share Plutarch’s perspective, but the biological links between humans and animals propelled Greek scientists into becoming pioneers of zoological investigation. The ancient Greek cosmologist Anaximander of Miletus (sixth century BCE) began the scientific study of animal life using the natural environment along the eastern shores of the Aegean Sea as his laboratory. He observed fossils of marine species that no longer existed in his own day and speculated that life originated in the sea and that the earliest land animals had come out from the sea.

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In the fifth century BCE, other natural philosophers, like Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Empedocles of Akragas, and Democritus of Abdera, paid attention to the animal world in their search for causes and effects in nature. Basically, they were all trying to answer the question of how certain living things and their physiological features or capabilities (such as flight among birds) had come to be. Meanwhile, the doctors of the Hippocratic tradition (fifth and fourth centuries BCE), building on the considerable experience of generations of animal sacrifice in Greek religious rituals as well as their own work in animal dissection, drew analogies between animal and human anatomy and wrote about the medicinal functions of animal parts. Still others, like the historian Xenophon (c. 430–c. 354 BCE), who had an interest in hunting and fishing, contributed to or solidified Greek knowledge of animals for practical, human uses. The fourth-century BCE philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) really picked up on what Anaximander had started, studying the animal world systematically and for its own sake; amazingly, close to half of his original work on animals survives. His interest in zoology seems to have begun during his travels in the northeastern Aegean and especially during his visit to the island of Lesbos, where he was the guest of his friend and former classmate at Plato’s Academy, Theophrastus of Lesbos (c. 370–287 BCE). Here his researches into animal species seriously began—researches that would lead in later years to five major treatises on animal biology and many references to animal life in other works. Aristotle constructed these studies from what the Greeks called autopsia, that is, his own firsthand observations (including dissections), as well as from reading the works of other authors, and collecting testimony from eyewitness informants in different parts of the Greek world and even beyond (since his star pupil, Alexander the Great had opened up the territories of the Persian Empire and India to a whole variety of Greek observers, including scientists). In his History of Animals alone, Aristotle covers almost 550 genera, including cephalopods (octopi and squids), mollusks, crustaceans, sea mammals (especially cetaceans like dolphins, porpoises, and whales), insects, quadrupeds, birds, fish, and, of course, humans. He learned from his mentor Plato the process of classifying things in terms of opposites (for instance, Aristotle speaks of “bloodless” and “blooded” animals) and reading from Greek medical writers would have exposed him to a taxonomy or classification system based on uses (for instance, of drugs derived from medicinal plants). Across his studies, Aristotle developed a system of greater complexity than either of these exempla, however, derived from his own peculiar interest in the form, function, and purpose of things and his theory of the four causes (material, formal, efficient, final). He examined the physiological/structural attributes of groups of animals and then analyzed the matter, shape, process, and purposes of those attributes.

Science and Technology: Zoology

This led him to pay minute attention to body parts (flesh, hair, bone, blood, marrow, milk, cartilage, organs, etc.); to invent embryology (through careful, dayby-day investigation of chicken eggs); to study the development of the young of species; to investigate breeding habits; to dissect the stomachs of ruminants and the mammary system in mammals. Aristotle came to the conclusion that survival takes precedence over almost all other factors in the biology of animals, and yet exceptions to that rule do occur, apparently he thought, without any discernible reason. Aristotle’s younger contemporary, the physician Diocles of Carystus, dissected animals to serve the needs of medical science, as did Praxagoras of Cos later in the same century, and the Alexandrian physician-anatomists Herophilus and Erasistratus into the next century. Marinus of Alexandria and Galen of Pergamum revived these experiments in the second century CE. Galen became especially well-known for his dissections and vivisections of apes and pigs. Like Aristotle, all of these “zoologists” tried to explain what they discovered according to the standards of form, function, and purpose within the life system of animals. Important insights into human biology were gained by ancient zoological investigation, but veterinary medicine also likely benefited. It had existed in rudimentary form among the Greeks going far back into their history. Aristotle learned from informants in agriculture and animal husbandry about animal diseases and their cures and included that material in his zoological essays. From at least the third or second century BCE, we read of hippiatroi, technically horse doctors, but Greeks used the term to describe veterinarians in general. Unfortunately, scholars have to rely almost exclusively on texts from the Late Roman Empire and even from Byzantine times to attempt a reconstruction of veterinary science and its links to zoology among the ancient Greeks. Systematic zoological study never again reached the level of Aristotle’s commitment among the ancient Greeks or Romans. Even four centuries after him, the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder relied heavily on Aristotle’s treatises for the considerable material on animals (four out of thirty-seven books) in his encyclopedic Natural History; a more discursive, even romanticized account, Pliny’s intention seems to have been to remind his readers about the distinctions between humans and animals. Indeed, as the intellectual world in Hellenistic and Roman times turned more toward the debates among various philosophical mindsets, the “mundane” connections of humanity to the animal world to be investigated through zoology seemed to pale in comparison with humanity’s moral, emotional, and rational “superiority” over the animal kingdom. See also: Arts: Philosophy, Aristotle; Science and Technology: Biology; Botany; Cosmology; Experimentation and Research; Medicine

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The World of Ancient Greece FURTHER READING Beavis, I. C. 1988. Insects and Other Invertebrates in Classical Antiquity. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Bertman, S. 2010. The Genesis of Science: The Story of the Greek Imagination. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Couprie, D. L., R. Hahn, and G. Naddaf. 2003. Anaximander in Context. Albany: SUNY Press. Edelstein, L. 1967. Ancient Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. French, R. 1994. Ancient Natural History. London and New York: Routledge. Hankinson, R. J. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kalof, L., ed. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity. Oxford: Berg. Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield. 1983. The Presocratic Philosophers. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lennox, J. G. 2001. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1970. Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle. New York: Random House. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1973. Greek Science after Aristotle. New York: W. W. Norton. Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York: Routledge. Von Staden, H. 1989. Herophilus. The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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AESCHINES ON FOREIGN NEGOTIATION AND DOMESTIC MUD-SLINGING (343 BCE) In the second half of the fourth century BCE, Athenian politicians became frenzied in either their promotion of or opposition to the rising power of Philip II, king of Macedon. Two major figures collided with each other in the midst of this frenzy, the political orators Demosthenes (c. 385– 322 BCE) and Aeschines (c. 397–c. 322 BCE). Having been accused of treason by Demosthenes, Aeschines sought to defend himself in his On the Embassy. The oration provides good insights into the politicking in Athens and the challenges of operating in an increasing polarized world, as well as the methods of political oratory. Aeschines succeeded in his selfdefense, but still lost much of his reputation from the slanders pronounced against him.

2.8 It is I who am now on trial, and that too for my life. . . . For [Demosthenes] has unceasingly insulted us and poured out his slanderous lies, not upon me alone, but upon all the rest [of the ambassadors] as well. . . . 2.25 So when . . . [my] turn [to address the king] came. . . . 2.26 In the first place, I described to him our [Athenian and Macedonian] traditional friendship and your [Athenian state’s] generous services to Amyntas [his] father. . . . Secondly, I reminded him of services of which he himself had been both witness and recipient. For shortly after the death of Amyntas, and of Alexander, the eldest of [Philip’s] brothers, while Perdiccas and Philip were still children, when their mother Eurydice had been betrayed by those who professed to be their friends. . . . 2.28 . . . “Then,” said I, “your mother Eurydice sent for [the Athenian admiral Iphicrates], and . . . , she put your brother Perdiccas into [his] arms, and set you upon his knees—for you were a little boy—and said, ‘Amyntas, the father of these

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little children, when he was alive, made you his son, and enjoyed the friendship of the city of Athens; we have a right therefore to consider you in your private capacity a brother of these boys, and in your public capacity a friend to us.’. . .” 2.30 . . . And again I did not hesitate to complain of Philip himself, blaming him for having taken up in his turn the war against our state . . . 2.34 Now when I had said this and more beside, at last came Demosthenes’ turn to speak. All were intent, expecting to hear a masterpiece of eloquence . . . [but] getting on a little way into the subject he suddenly stopped speaking and stood helpless; finally he collapsed completely. 2.36 Now when we were by ourselves, our worthy colleague Demosthenes put on an exceedingly sour face and declared that I had ruined the city and the allies. And when not only I, but all the rest of the ambassadors were amazed, . . . he asked me if I had forgotten the situation at Athens, and if I did not remember that the people were worn out and exceedingly anxious for peace. . . . 2.39 [On a second audience] when Philip turned to expressions of friendship, and the bottom dropped out of the slander which this Demosthenes had previously uttered against me before our fellow ambassadors, . . . then indeed it was plain to see that he was altogether beside himself, so that even when we were invited to dinner [by Philip] he behaved with shameful rudeness. . . . 2.44 Now up to this point I am supported by the testimony of my colleagues in the embassy, whom he has reviled and slandered from beginning to end of his accusation. But his words on the platform in your presence you yourselves have heard; so it will not be possible for me to misrepresent them. . . . 2.45 On our return, then, after we had rendered to the [Council] a brief report of our mission and had delivered the letter from Philip, Demosthenes praised us to his colleagues in the [Council] . . . , men who in honesty and eloquence were worthy of the state. 2.46 . . . And to cap it all he moved that each of us be crowned with a garland of wild olive because of our loyalty to the people, and that we be invited to dine on the morrow in the Prytaneum. To prove that I have spoken to you nothing but the truth, please let the clerk take the decree, and let him read the testimony of my colleagues in the embassy. . . . 2.54 .  .  . take, if you please, the decrees, that you, gentlemen of the jury, may know how crooked he is and how jealous . . . ; and that you may know his ­character—how treacherous and faithless. Call also my colleagues in the embassy, if you please, and read their testimony. . . . 2.56 You find, therefore, that it was not Philocrates and I who entered into partnership in the negotiations for the peace, but Philocrates and Demosthenes. And I think that the proofs which I have presented to you in confirmation of what I have said are sufficient. . . .

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2.69 . . . Consider whether you conclude that it is I whom Demosthenes has accused, or whether on the contrary he has accused himself in my name. But since he also misrepresents the speech that I made, and puts a false construction on what was said, I have no disposition to run away, or to deny a word that was then spoken; I am not ashamed of what I said; on the contrary, I am proud of it. 2.75 . . . we must . . . imitate the wisdom of our forefathers, and beware of their mistakes and their unseasonable jealousies. . . . 2.79 But you [Demosthenes] . . . say that I have changed sides. . . . So long as the war [with Philip] lasted, I tried so far as in me lay to unite the Arcadians and the rest of Hellas against Philip. But when no man came to the help of our city, but some were waiting to see what was going to happen, and others were taking the field against us, while the politicians in our own city were using the war to subsidize the extravagance of their daily life, I acknowledge that I advised the people to come to terms with Philip, and to make the peace, which you, Demosthenes, now hold disgraceful, . . . but which I declare to be much more honourable than the war. . . . 2.152 . . . I ask, fellow citizens, whether you believe that I would have betrayed to Philip, not only my country, my personal friendships, and my rights in the shrines and tombs of my fathers, but also [my three] children, the dearest of mankind to me. Do you believe that I would have held his friendship more precious than the safety of these children? . . . What unworthy act have I ever done . . . ? . . . 2.181 . . . With all loyalty I have served the city as her ambassador, alone subjected to the clamour of the slanderers. . . . 2.184 . . . My speech is finished. This my body I, and the law, now commit to your hands. Source: “II. The Speech on the Embassy,” in The Speeches of Aeschines, translated by Charles Darwin Adams (London: William Heinemann, 1919), 167, 181–185, 189, 193–195, 199–201, 211, 215, 219, 277, 299–301.

ARISTOPHANES ON AN IDEAL STATE RUN BY WOMEN (392 BCE) The master of Old Comedy, Aristophanes of Athens (c. 450–c. 386 BCE), often sought in his plays to turn contemporary society upside-down. He sometimes focused stories on female characters and utilized female leads to do so. In the case of the Ecclesiazusae (Assemblywomen), Athenian women plot to seize control of the government by dressing in men’s clothing so that they could, thus disguised, enter the Assembly of voters (the Ecclesia) and pass decrees in favor of a fully communal society. The scheme, hatched by Blepyrus’ wife Praxagora, comes off beautifully.

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BLEPYRUS (coming out of his house attired in his wife’s petticoat and shoes) What’s the matter? Whither in the world is my wife gone? For it is now near morning, and she does not appear. I have been . . . seeking to find my shoes and my garment in the dark. And when now, on groping after it, I was not able to find it, . . . I take this kerchief of my wife’s, and I trail along in her Persian slippers. . . . Ah me, miserable! because I married a wife, being an old man. How many stripes I deserve to get! For she never went out to do any good. . . . NEIGHBOUR (coming forward) Who is it? Surely it is not Blepyrus my neighbour? Yes, by [Zeus]! ’tis he himself assuredly. [Goes up to him.] Tell me, what means this yellow colour? . . . BLEPYRUS . . . I have come out with my wife’s little saffron-coloured robe on, which she is accustomed to put on. NEIGHBOUR But where is your garment? BLEPYRUS I can’t tell. For when I looked for it, I did not find it in the bed-clothes. . . . NEIGHBOUR By [Poseidon], then you’ve suffered exactly the same as I; for she I live with, is gone with the garment I used to wear. And this is not the only thing which troubles me; but she has also taken my shoes. Therefore I was not able to find them any where. . . . What then can it be? Has some woman among her friends invited her to breakfast? . . . Come, . . . it is time for me to go to the Assembly, if I find my garment, the only one I had.

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. . . [Enter CHREMES.] BLEPYRUS . . . But whence have you come, pray? CHREMES From the Assembly. . . . A very great crowd of men, as never at any time came all at once to the Pynx. . . . the Assembly was marvelously filled. . . . BLEPYRUS But what was the cause, that so vast a crowd was assembled so early? CHREMES What else, but that the Prytanes determined to bring forward a motion concerning the safety of the state? . . . . . . a handsome, fair-faced youth [actually BLEPYRUS’s wife PRAXAGORA], . . . jumped up to harangue the people, and essayed to speak, to the intent that we ought to commit the state to the women. And then the mob . . . cheered and cried out, that he spoke well . . . . . . he persevered in his clamour, saying much good of the women, but much ill of you. BLEPYRUS Why, what did he say? CHREMES First he said you were a knave . . . And then a thief . . . And, by [Zeus], an informer too.

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And, by [Zeus], the greater part of these here. [Points to the audience.] ... A woman, on the other hand, he said was a clever and money-getting thing; and he said they did not constantly divulge the secrets of the Thesmophoria, while you and I always did so when we were [Councillors]. BLEPYRUS And, by [Hermes], in this he did not lie! CHREMES Then he said they lent to each other garments, gold, silver, drinking-cups, all alone, not in the presence of witnesses: and that they returned all these, and did not keep them back; while most of us, he said, did so. BLEPYRUS Yes, by [Poseidon], in the presence of witnesses! CHREMES That they did not act the informer, did not bring actions, nor put down the democracy; but he praised the women for many good qualities, and for very many other reasons. BLEPYRUS What then was decreed? CHREMES To commit the state to [the women]. For this plan alone appeared not to have been tried as yet in the state. . . . CHORUS OF WOMEN Advance, proceed! Is there any of the men that is following us? Turn about! look! guard yourself carefully, —for knaves are numerous,— lest perchance some one being behind us, should espy our dress . . .

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Wherefore it is fitting that we do not loiter waiting longer, equipped with beards, lest some one shall see us, and perhaps denounce us. But . . . change your dress again as you were before, and do not loiter: for see here! now we behold our general coming from the Assembly . . . [Enter PRAXAGORA and other women from the Assembly, no longer disguised as men.] PRAXAGORA (addressing the chorus) These measures, women, which we deliberated on, have turned out successfully. . . . BLEPYRUS (suddenly coming out of his house) Ho you! Whence have you come, Praxagora? . . . Why then did you go off at day-break in silence with my garment? . . . . . . But there is some mischief in this. . . . . . . ought you not to have worn your own garment? But after you had stripped me, and thrown your upper garment over me, you went off and left me as if I were laid out for burial. . . . PRAXAGORA For it was cold; while I am thin and weak. So then I put it on, in order that I might be warm. But I left you lying in the warmth, and in the bed-clothes, husband. . . . BLEPYRUS Then don’t you know what has been decreed? . . . . . . they say the state has been committed to you. PRAXAGORA By [Aphrodite], the state will be happy henceforth! . . . . . . For no longer will it be permitted for the audacious to act shamefully towards it henceforth, and no where to give evidence, nor to act the informer . . .

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. . . nor to steal clothes, nor to envy one’s neighbours, nor to be naked, nor that any one be poor, nor to rail at one another, nor to seize as a pledge and carry off. . . . . . . For I will declare that all ought to enjoy all things in common, and live upon the same property; and not for one to be rich, and another miserably poor; nor one to cultivate much land, and another to have not even enough to be buried in; nor one to have many slaves, and another not even a footman. But I will make one common subsistence for all, and that too equal. . . . I will first of all make the land common to all, and the silver, and the other things, as many as each has. Then we will maintain you out of these, being common, husbanding, and sparing, and giving our attention to it. . . . BLEPYRUS Come now, let me follow you close by, that I may be gazed at, and that people may say as follows: “Do you not admire this husband of our general?” [Exeunt PRAXAGORA and BLEPYRUS.] Source: The Comedies of Aristophanes, vol. 2, “The Ecclesiazusae,” translated by William James Hickie (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), 632–647, 650–651, 655.

ARISTOTLE ON FAMILIAL FRIENDSHIP (FOURTH CENTURY BCE) The philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) constructed his theories on politics and society upon the basic building blocks of human relationships. He understood the most fundamental of those relationships to be the ties of family and the bonds of friendship (philia in Greek). Much of his seminal work on virtuous living, the Nicomachean Ethics, is taken up with a discussion of these relationships, since he regarded virtue as something people practice toward one another most perfectly among their family and friends. In these passages, Aristotle shares his views on friendship within the family, views that the vast majority of ancient Greeks would have held.

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8.12.1161b Every form of friendship, then, involves association, as has been said. One might, however, mark off from the rest both the friendship of kindred and that of comrades. Those of fellow-citizens, fellow-tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, and the like are more like mere friendships of association; for they seem to rest on a sort of compact. With them we might class the friendship of host and guest. The friendship of kinsmen itself, while it seems to be of many kinds, appears to depend in every case on parental friendship; for parents love their children as being a part of themselves, and children their parents as being something originating from them. Now (1) parents know their offspring better than their children know that they are their children, and (2) the originator feels his offspring to be his own more than the offspring do their begetter; for the product belongs to the producer (e.g. a tooth or hair or anything else to him whose it is), but the producer does not belong to the product, or belongs in a less degree. And (3) the length of time produces the same result; parents love their children as soon as these are born, but children love their parents only after time has elapsed and they have acquired understanding or the power of discrimination by the senses. From these considerations it is also plain why mothers love more than fathers do. Parents, then, love their children as themselves (for their issue are by virtue of their separate existence a sort of other selves), while children love their parents as being born of them, and brothers love each other as being born of the same parents; for their identity with them makes them identical with each other (which is the reason why people talk of ‘the same blood’, ‘the same stock’, and so on). They are, therefore, in a sense the same thing, though in separate individuals. Two things that contribute greatly to friendship are a common upbringing and similarity of age; for ‘two of an age take to each other’, and people brought up together tend to be comrades; whence the friendship of brothers is akin to that of comrades. And cousins and other kinsmen are bound up together by derivation from brothers, viz. by being derived from the same parents. They come to be closer together or farther apart by virtue of the nearness or distance of the original ancestor. 8.12.1162a The friendship of children to parents, and of men to gods, is a relation to them as to something good and superior; for they have conferred the greatest benefits, since they are the causes of their being and of their nourishment, and of their education from their birth; and this kind of friendship possesses pleasantness and utility also, more than that of strangers, inasmuch as their life is lived more in common. The friendship of brothers has the characteristics found in that of comrades (and especially when these are good), and in general between people who are like each other, inasmuch as they belong more to each other and start with a love for each other from their very birth, and inasmuch as those born of the same parents and brought up together and similarly educated are more akin

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in character; and the test of time has been applied most fully and convincingly in their case. Between other kinsmen friendly relations are found in due proportion. Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples—even more than to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier and more necessary than the city, and reproduction is more common to man with the animals. With the other animals the union extends only to this point, but human beings live together not only for the sake of reproduction but also for the various purposes of life; for from the start the functions are divided, and those of man and woman are different; so they help each other by throwing their peculiar gifts into the common stock. It is for these reasons that both utility and pleasure seem to be found in this kind of friendship. But this friendship may be based also on virtue, if the parties are good; for each has its own virtue and they will delight in the fact. And children seem to be a bond of union (which is the reason why childless people part more easily); for children are a good common to both and what is common holds them together. How man and wife and in general friend and friend ought mutually to behave seems to be the same question as how it is just for them to behave; for a man does not seem to have the same duties to a friend, a stranger, a comrade, and a schoolfellow. Source: The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, book 8, chapter 12, sections 1161b–1162a, translated by W. D. Ross (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), 212–215.

DIOGENES LAERTIUS ON THE PHILOSOPHER HIPPARCHIA (THIRD CENTURY CE) Not all ancient philosophers were men. A notable example is Hipparchia of Maroneia (late fourth century BCE), wife of Crates the Cynic. She figures as the only female philosopher in The Lives of the Eminent Philosophers written by Diogenes Laertius (third century CE). In the passages below, the author reveals the keen sense of logic and wit traditionally associated with Hipparchia, as well as her firm defense of her own choice of life path against clear male opposition.

6.96 [Hipparchia] fell in love with the discourses and the life of Crates, and would not pay attention to any of her suitors, their wealth, their high birth or their beauty. But to her Crates was everything. She used even to threaten her parents she would make away with herself, unless she were given in marriage to him. Crates therefore

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was implored by her parents to dissuade the girl, and did all he could, and at last, failing to persuade her, got up, took off his clothes before her face and said, “This is the bridegroom, here are his possessions; make your choice accordingly; for you will be no helpmeet of mine, unless you share my pursuits.” 6.97 The girl chose and, adopting the same dress, went about with her husband and lived with him in public and went out to dinners with him. Accordingly she appeared at the banquet given by Lysimachus, and there put down Theodorus, known as the atheist, by means of the following sophism. Any action which would not be called wrong if done by Theodorus, would not be called wrong if done by Hipparchia. Now Theodorus does no wrong when he strikes himself: therefore neither does Hipparchia do wrong when she strikes Theodorus. He had no reply wherewith to meet the argument, but tried to strip her of her cloak. But Hipparchia showed no sign of alarm or of the perturbation natural in a woman. 6.98 And when he said to her [quoting Euripides’ Bacchae]: “Is this she who quitting woof and warp and comb and loom?” she replied, “It is I, Theodorus,—but do you suppose that I have been ill advised about myself, if instead of wasting further time upon the loom I spent it in education?” These tales and countless others are told of the female philosopher. Source: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. 2, book 6, chapters 96–98, translated by R. D. Hicks (London: William Heinemann, 1925), 99–103.

EURIPIDES ON WOMEN’S TRAGEDY OF SURVIVING WAR (415 BCE) Euripides (c. 485–406 BCE) was younger than both Aeschylus and Sophocles, the other famous tragedians of Athens, and his plays often lost to theirs in dramatic competitions. Nevertheless, his productions were quite popular and have experienced many revivals in modern times. Unlike his contemporaries, Euripides created complex and multifaceted female characters. Case in point is his Trojan Women. Staged in 415 BCE, in the midst of the ongoing war between Athens and Sparta and their respective alliances, it revolves around the character of Hecuba, queen of ruined Troy, and the other women who survived to face further terrors in the aftermath of the Trojan War. Perhaps the most unsettling part of the play involves the announcement by the Greeks that Hecuba’s grandson, the son of Hector and Andromache, must be executed by being thrown off the walls of the city. It seems like there is no rest or peace for the female survivors of war, even after all their previous sufferings and loss—a fact that almost all Greeks of the playwright’s time would have personally understood.

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[In this scene, Hecuba’s daughter-in-law, the widow of Hector, shares the news that Hecuba’s daughter, Polyxena, has been sacrificed by the Greeks. Andromache expresses her wish to be dead rather than living and then suffers a further calamity.]

ANDROMACHE [Polyxena] hath died her death, and how so dark it be, Her death is sweeter than my misery. HECUBA Death cannot be what Life is, Child; the cup Of Death is empty, and Life hath always hope. ANDROMACHE O Mother, having ears, hear thou this word Fear-conquering, till thy heart as mine be stirred With joy. To die is only not to be; And better to be dead than grievously Living. They have no pain, they ponder not Their own wrong. But the living that is brought From joy to heaviness, his soul doth roam, As in a desert, lost, from its old home. Thy daughter lieth now as one unborn, Dead, and naught knowing of the lust and scorn That slew her. And I . . . long since I drew my bow Straight at the heart of good fame; and I know My shaft hit; and for that am I the more Fallen from peace. All that men praise us for, I loved for Hector’s sake, and sought to win. I knew that always, be there hurt therein Or utter innocence, to roam abroad Hath ill report for women; so I trod Down the desire thereof, and walked my way In mine own garden. And light words and gay Parley of women never passed my door. The thoughts of mine own heart . . . I craved no more. . . . He spoke with me, and I was happy. Constantly I brought fair silence and a tranquil eye For Hector’s greeting, and watched well the way

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Of living, where to guide and where obey. And, lo! some rumour of this peace, being gone Forth to the Greek, hath cursed me. Achilles’ son, So soon as I was taken, for his thrall Chose me. I shall do service in the hall Of them that slew. . . . How? Shall I thrust aside Hector’s beloved face, and open wide My heart to this new lord? Oh, I should stand A traitor to the dead! And if my hand And flesh shrink from him . . . lo, wrath and despite O’er all the house, and I a slave! One night, One night . . . aye, men have said it . . . maketh tame A woman in a man’s arms. . . . O shame, shame! What woman’s lips can so forswear her dead, And give strange kisses in another’s bed? Why, not a dumb beast, not a colt will run In the yoke untroubled, when her mate is gone— A thing not in God’s [that is, the divine] image, dull, unmoved Of reason. O my Hector! best beloved, That, being mine, wast all in all to me, My prince, my wise one, O my majesty Of valiance! No man’s touch had ever come Near me, when thou from out my father’s home Didst lead me and make me thine. . . . And thou art dead, And I war-flung to slavery and the bread Of shame in Hellas, over bitter seas! What knoweth she of evils like to these, That dead Polyxena, thou weepest for? There liveth not in my life any more The hope that others have. Nor will I tell The lie to mine own heart, that aught is well Or shall be well. . . . Yet, O, to dream were sweet! . . . HECUBA Lo, yonder ships: I ne’er set foot on one, But tales and pictures tell, when over them Breaketh a storm not all too strong to stem,

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Each man strives hard, the tiller gripped, the mast Manned, the hull baled, to face it: till at last Too strong breaks the o’erwhelming sea: lo, then They cease, and yield them up as broken men To fate and the wild waters. Even so I in my many sorrows bear me low, Nor curse, nor strive that other things may be. The great wave rolled from God hath conquered me. But, O, let Hector and the fates that fell On Hector, sleep. Weep for him ne’er so well, Thy weeping shall not wake him. Honour thou The new lord that is set above thee now, And make of thine own gentle piety A prize to lure his heart. So shalt thou be A strength to them that love us, and—God knows, It may be—rear this babe among his foes, My Hector’s child, to manhood and great aid For Ilion. So her stones may yet be laid One on another, if God will, and wrought Again to a city! Ah, how thought to thought Still beckons! . . . But what minion of the Greek Is this that cometh, with new words to speak? (Enter the Greek messenger TALTHYBIUS with a band of Soldiers. He comes forward slowly and with evident disquiet.) TALTHYBIUS Spouse of the noblest heart that beat in Troy, Andromache, hate me not! ’Tis not in joy I tell thee. But the people and the Kings Have with one voice. . . . Tis ordered, this child. . . . Oh, How can I tell her of it? . . . ’Tis their will Thy son shall die. . . . The whole vile thing is said Now! . . .

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And speaking in the council of the host Odysseus hath prevailed— . . . That the son Of one so perilous be not fostered on To manhood— . . . . . . Nay, let the thing Be done. Thou shalt be wiser so. Nor cling So fiercely to him. Suffer as a brave Woman in bitter pain; nor think to have Strength which thou hast not. Look about thee here! Canst thou see help, or refuge anywhere? Thy land is fallen and thy lord, and thou A prisoner and alone, one woman; how Canst battle against us? For thine own good I would not have thee strive, nor make ill blood And shame about thee. . . . Ah, nor move thy lips In silence there, to cast upon the ships Thy curse! One word of evil to the host, This babe shall have no burial, but be tossed Naked. . . . Ah, peace! And bear as best thou may, War’s fortune. So thou shalt not go thy way Leaving this child unburied; nor the Greek Be stern against thee, if thy heart be meek! ANDROMACHE (to the child) Go, die, my best-beloved, my cherished one, In fierce men’s hands, leaving me here alone. Thy father was too valiant; that is why They slay thee! Other children, like to die, Might have been spared for that. But on thy head His good is turned to evil. . . . . . . Weepest thou? Nay, why, my little one? Thou canst not know. And Father will not come; he will not come; Not once, the great spear flashing, and the tomb Riven to set thee free! Not one of all

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His brethren, nor the might of Ilion’s wall . . . . . . Thou little thing That curlest in my arms, what sweet scents cling All round thy neck! Beloved; can it be All nothing, that this bosom cradled thee And fostered; all the weary nights, wherethrough I watched upon thy sickness, till I grew Wasted with watching? Kiss me. This one time; Not ever again. Put up thine arms, and climb About my neck: now, kiss me, lips to lips. . . . O, ye have found an anguish that outstrips All tortures of the East, ye gentle Greeks! Why will ye slay this innocent, that seeks No wrong? . . . O Helen, Helen, thou ill tree That Tyndareus planted, who shall deem of thee As child of Zeus? O, thou hast drawn thy breath From many fathers, Madness, Hate, red Death, And every rotting poison of the sky! Zeus knows thee not, thou vampire, draining dry. Greece and the world! God hate thee and destroy, That with those beautiful eyes hast blasted Troy, And made the far-famed plains a waste withal. . . . (She swoons.) Source: The Trojan Women of Euripides, translated by Gilbert Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1915), 43–49.

HERODOTUS ON GELON’S REFUSAL TO JOIN THE GREEK ALLIANCE (481 BCE) The Greeks frequently did not cooperate with one another, even in times of greatest peril, as in this case, where the tyrant of eastern Sicily, Gelon of Syracuse, refused to join the struggle against the Persians under Xerxes, except on conditions favorable to his position and his sense of honor. While recording the deeds of the Greeks and Persians in their conflicts with one another in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484–c. 425 BCE) in his Histories did not neglect affairs in the western territories of the Greek world, such as those in Sicily.

7.157 . . . Gelon had grown to greatness as a despot [over eastern Sicily]; and now, when the Greek envoys were come to Syracuse, they had audience of him and

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spoke as follows. “The Lacedaemonians and their allies,” said they, “have sent us to win your aid against the foreigner; for it cannot be, we think, that you have no knowledge of the Persian invader of Hellas, how he purposes to bridge the Hellespont and lead all the hosts of the east from Asia against us, making an open show of marching against Athens, but in very deed with intent to subdue all Hellas to his will. Now you are rich in power, and being lord of Sicily you rule thereby what is not the least part of Hellas; wherefore, we pray you, send help to them that would free Hellas, and aid them in so doing. For the uniting of all of Greek stock is the mustering of a mighty host, able to meet our invaders in the field; but if some of us play false, and others will not come to our aid, and the sound part of Hellas be but small, then it is to be feared that all Greek lands alike will be undone. Think not that if the Persian defeat us in battle and subdue us, he will leave you unassailed; but look well to yourself ere that day come. Aid us, and you champion your own cause; a well-laid plan commonly leads to a happy issue.” 7.158 Thus they spoke; whereto Gelon answered, speaking very vehemently: “Men of Hellas, it is with a self-seeking plea that you have made bold to come hither and invite me to be your ally against the foreigners; yet what of yourselves? When I was at feud with the [Carthaginians], and prayed you to stand my comrades against a foreign army, . . . then neither for my sake would you come to aid . . . ; and for all that you did, all these lands [would] lie beneath the foreigners’ feet. Let that be; for all ended well, and our state was bettered. But now that the war has come round to you in your turn, ’tis the time for remembering Gelon! Yet albeit you so slighted me, I will not take example by you; I am ready to send to your aid two hundred triremes, twenty thousand men-at-arms, two thousand horse, two thousand archers, two thousand slingers, and two thousand light-armed men to run with horsemen; and I undertake that I will furnish provision for the whole Greek army till we have made an end of the war. But I thus promise on this one condition, that I shall be general and leader of the Greeks against the foreigner. On no other condition will I come myself or send others.” 7.159 When [the Spartan envoy] Syagrus heard that, he could not contain himself; . . . “Nay, put that thought from you, that we will deliver up the command to you. If it is your will to aid Hellas, know that you must obey the Lacedaemonians; but if (as I think) you are too proud to obey, then send no aid.” 7.160 Thereupon Gelon . . . declared his mind to them: “My Spartan friend, the hard words that a man hears are apt to arouse his anger; but for all the arrogant tenor of your speech you shall not move me to make an unseemly answer. When you set such store by the command, it is but reasonable that I should set yet more, being the leader of an army many times greater than yours and more ships by far. But seeing that you answer me thus stiffly, we will abate somewhat of our first condition. It might be, that you should command the army, and I the fleet; or if it

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be your pleasure to lead by sea, then I am willing that the army should be mine. With that you must needs be content, unless you would depart hence without such allies as we are.” 7.161 Such was Gelon’s offer; and the Athenian envoy answered him ere the Lacedaemonian could speak. “King of the Syracusans,” said he, “Hellas sends us to you to ask not for a leader but for an army; and you say no word of sending an army save and except you can be the leader of Hellas; it is for the command that all your desire is. Now as long as you sought the leadership of the whole armament, we Athenians were content to hold our peace, knowing that the Laconian was well able to answer for both of us; but since, failing to win the whole, you would fain command the fleet, we would have you know how the matter stands. Even though the Laconian should suffer you to command it, not so will we; for the command of the fleet is ours. . . . For it were vain that we should possess the greatest multitude of sea-faring men in Hellas, if, being Athenians, we yield up our command to Syracusans. . . .” 7.162 “My Athenian friend,” Gelon answered, “it would seem that you have many that lead, but none that will follow. Since, then, you will waive no claim but must have the whole, ’tis high time that you depart home with all speed and tell your Hellas that her year has lost her spring.” Of which saying this is the signification, that Gelon’s army was the most notable part of the Greek army, even as the spring is of the year; so he compared Hellas deprived of alliance with him to a year bereft of its spring. 7.163 After such trafficking with Gelon the Greek envoys sailed away. But Gelon feared therefore that the Greeks would not avail to overcome the foreigner. . . . As soon as he was informed that the Persian had crossed the Hellespont, he sent Cadmus . . . to Delphi with three ships of fifty oars, carrying with them money and messages of friendship [for the Persians]; Cadmus was to watch the event of the battle, and if the foreigner should be victorious then to give him the money, and earth and water withal on behalf of Gelon’s dominions; but if the Greeks, then to carry all back again. Source: Herodotus, vol. 3, book 7, chapters 157–163, translated by A. D. Godley, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1922), 469–477.

HESIOD ON THE VALUES OF LIFE (EIGHTH CENTURY BCE) Works and Days by the Greek poet Hesiod (eighth century BCE) purports to be advice to his brother Perses, who had cheated Hesiod of his inheritance. In fact, the poem combines practical suggestions on agriculture and proper social and religious conduct with the poet’s exhortation to a life of honesty,

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Line 202 And now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand. Thus said the hawk to the nightingale with speckled neck, while he carried her high up among the clouds, gripped fast in his talons, and she, pierced by his crooked talons, cried pitifully. 205 To her he spoke disdainfully: ‘Miserable thing, why do you cry out? One far stronger than you now holds you fast, and you must go wherever I take you, songstress as you are. And if I please I will make my meal of you, or let you go. He is a fool who tries to withstand the stronger, 210 for he does not get the mastery and suffers pain besides his shame.’ So said the swiftly flying hawk, the long-winged bird. 212 But you, Perses, listen to right and do not foster violence; for violence is bad for a poor man. 215 Even the prosperous cannot easily bear its burden, but is weighed down under it when he has fallen into delusion. The better path is to go by on the other side towards justice; 220 for Justice beats Outrage when she comes at length to the end of the race. But only when he has suffered does the fool learn this. For Oath keeps pace with wrong judgements. There is a noise when Justice is being dragged in the way where those who devour bribes and give sentence with crooked judgements take her. And she, wrapped in mist, follows to the city and haunts of the people, weeping, and bringing mischief to men, even to such as have driven her forth in that they did not deal straightly with her. 225 But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to the men of the land, and go not aside from what is just, their city flourishes, and the people prosper in it: Peace, the nurse of children, is abroad in their land, and all-seeing Zeus never decrees cruel war against them. 230 Neither famine nor disaster ever haunt men who do true justice; but light-heartedly they tend the fields which are all their care. The earth bears them victuals in plenty, and on the mountains the oak bears acorns upon the top and bees in the midst. Their woolly sheep are laden with fleeces; 235 their women bear children like their parents. They flourish continually with good things, and do not travel on ships, for the grain-giving earth bears them fruit. 238 But for those who practise violence and cruel deeds far-seeing Zeus, the son of Cronos, ordains a punishment. Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins and devises presumptuous deeds, and the son of Cronos lays great trouble upon the people, famine and plague together, 240 so that the men perish away, and their women do not bear children, and their houses become few, through

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the contriving of Olympian Zeus. And again, at another time, the son of Cronos either destroys their wide army, or their walls, or else makes an end of their ships on the sea. . . . 293 That man is altogether best who considers all things himself and marks what will be better afterwards and at the end; 295 and he, again, is good who listens to a good adviser; but whoever neither thinks for himself nor keeps in mind what another tells him, he is an unprofitable man. But do you at any rate, always remembering my charge, work, high-born Perses, that Hunger may hate you, 300 and venerable Demeter richly crowned may love you and fill your barn with food; for Hunger is altogether a meet comrade for the sluggard. Both gods and men are angry with a man who lives idle, 305 for in nature he is like the stingless drones who waste the labour of the bees, eating without working; but let it be your care to order your work properly, that in the right season your barns may be full of victuals. Through work men grow rich in flocks and substance, and working they are much better loved by the immortals. 310 Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace. But if you work, the idle will soon envy you as you grow rich, for fame and renown attend on wealth. And whatever be your lot, work is best for you, 315 if you turn your misguided mind away from other men’s property to your work and attend to your livelihood as I bid you. An evil shame is the needy man’s companion, shame which both greatly harms and prospers men: 320 shame is with poverty, but confidence with wealth. . . . 352 Do not get base gain: base gain is as bad as ruin. Be friends with the friendly, and visit him who visits you. 355 Give to one who gives, but do not give to one who does not give. A man gives to the free-handed, but no one gives to the close-fisted. Give is a good girl, but Take is bad and she brings death. For the man who gives willingly, even though he gives a great thing, rejoices in his gift and is glad in heart; but whoever gives way to shamelessness and takes something himself, 360 even though it be a small thing, it freezes his heart. He who adds to what he has, will keep off bright-eyed hunger; for if you add only a little to a little and do this often, soon that little will become great. What a man has by him at home does not trouble him: 365 it is better to have your stuff at home, for whatever is abroad may mean loss. It is a good thing to draw on what you have; but it grieves your heart to need something and not to have it, and I bid you mark this. 369 Take your fill when the cask is first opened and when it is nearly spent, but midways be sparing. . . . Source: “Works and Days,” lines 202–240, 293–320, 352–369, in Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, translated by H. G. Evelyn-White, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1914), 19–21, 25–27, 29–31.

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“HIPPOCRATES” ON DIAGNOSIS AND OBSERVATION OF ILLNESSES (LATE FIFTH CENTURY BCE) Of the Epidemics I, one of seven treatises on the subject in the Hippocratic Corpus (named after and containing works ascribed to the almost legendary Greek physician, Hippocrates of Cos, c. 460–c. 370 BCE) discusses the diagnosis and observations involved in identifying illnesses and their course. In addition to descriptions and definitions of illnesses and instructions on recognition of their symptoms, it includes many case studies; more than half of the cases described are said to have ended in death. Throughout, the author of the treatise takes on the detached attitude of the scientific observer rather than the engaged bedside manner of a concerned healer.

1.3.1 With regard to diseases, the circumstances from which we form a judgment of them are,- by attending to the general nature of all, and the peculiar nature of each individual,- to the disease, the patient, and the applications,- to the person who applies them, as that makes a difference for better or for worse,- to the whole constitution of the season, and particularly to the state of the heavens, and the nature of each country;- to the patient’s habits, regimen, and pursuits;- to his conversation, manners, taciturnity, thoughts, sleep, or absence of sleep, and sometimes his dreams, what and when they occur;- to his picking and scratching;- to his tears;- to the alvine discharges, urine, sputa, and vomitings; and to the changes of diseases from the one into the other;- to the deposits, whether of a deadly or critical character;- to the sweat, coldness, rigor, cough, sneezing, hiccup, respiration, eructation, flatulence, whether passed silently or with a noise;- to hemorrhages and hemorrhoids;- from these, and their consequences, we must form our judgment. 1.3.2 Fevers are,- the continual, some of which hold during the day and have a remission at night, and others hold a remission during the day; semi-tertians, tertians, quartans, quintans, septans, nonans. The most acute, strongest, most dangerous, and fatal diseases, occur in the continual fever. The least dangerous of all, and the mildest and most protracted, is the quartan, for it is not only such from itself, but it also carries off other great diseases. In what is called the semi-tertian, other acute diseases are apt to occur, and it is the most fatal of all others, and moreover . . . those laboring under other protracted diseases, are apt to be attacked by it. The nocturnal fever is not very fatal, but protracted; the diurnal is still more protracted, and in some cases passes into phthisis. The septan is protracted, but not fatal; the nonan more protracted, and not fatal. The true tertian comes quickly to a crisis, and is not fatal; but the quintan is the worst of all, for it proves fatal when it precedes an attack of phthisis, and when it supervenes on persons who are already consumptive. There are peculiar modes, and constitutions, and paroxysms,

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in every one of these fevers; for example,- the continual, in some cases at the very commencement, grows, as it were, and attains its full strength, and rises to its most dangerous pitch, but is diminished about and at the crisis; in others it begins gentle and suppressed, but gains ground and is exacerbated every day, and bursts forth with all its heat about and at the crisis; while in others, again, it commences mildly, increases, and is exacerbated until it reaches its acme, and then remits until at and about the crisis. These varieties occur in every fever, and in every disease. From these observations one must regulate the regimen accordingly. There are many other important symptoms allied to these, part of which have been already noticed, and part will be described afterwards, from a consideration of which one may judge, and decide in each case, whether the disease be acute, or not acute, and whether it will end in death or recovery; or whether it will be protracted, and will end in death or recovery; and in what cases food is to be given, and in what not; and when and to what amount, and what particular kind of food is to be administered. [The author then lays out fourteen case studies of disease, including the following:] Case 5 The wife of Epicrates . . . being near the term of delivery, was seized with a violent rigor, and, as was said, she did not become heated; next day the same. On the third, she was delivered of a daughter, and everything went on properly. On the day following her delivery, she was seized with acute fever, pain in the cardiac region of the stomach, and in the genital parts. Having had a suppository, was in so far relieved; pain in the head, neck, and loins; no sleep; alvine discharges scanty, bilious, thin, and unmixed; urine thin, and blackish. Towards the night of the sixth day from the time she was seized with the fever, became delirious. On the seventh, all the symptoms exacerbated; insomnolency, delirium, thirst; stools bilious, and high colored. On the eighth, had a rigor; slept more. On the ninth, the same. On the tenth, her limbs painfully affected; pain again of the cardiac region of the stomach; heaviness of the head; no delirium; slept more; bowels constipated. On the eleventh, passed urine of a better color, and having an abundant sediment; felt lighter. On the fourteenth had a rigor; acute fever. On the fifteenth, had a copious vomiting of bilious and yellow matters; sweated; fever gone; at night acute fever; urine thick, sediment white. On the seventeenth, an exacerbation; night uncomfortable; no sleep; delirium. On the eighteenth, thirsty; tongue parched; no sleep; much delirium; legs painfully affected. About the twentieth, in the morning, had a light rigor; was comatose; slept tranquilly; had slight vomiting of bilious and black matters; towards night deafness. About the twenty-first, weight generally in the left side, with pain; slight urine thick, muddy, and reddish; when allowed to stand, had no sediment; in other respects felt lighter; fever not gone; fauces painful from the commencement, and red; uvula retracted; defluxion remained acrid, pungent, and

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saltish throughout. About the twenty-seventh, free of fever; sediment in the urine; pain in the side. About the thirty-first, was attacked with fever, bilious diarrhea; slight bilious vomiting on the fortieth. Had a complete crisis, and was freed from the fever on the eightieth day. Source: “Of the Epidemics,” in The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, vol. 1, book 1, section 3, translated by Francis Adams (New York: William Wood and Company, 1891), 306–308, 311–312.

HOMERIC HYMN TO MOTHER EARTH (DATE UNKNOWN) Influenced by the works of Homer and Hesiod, the thirty-three so-called Homeric Hymns were perhaps assembled as a collection in Hellenistic times, perhaps by Alexandrian scholars, though certainly many date far before that time, some at least as far back as the fifth century BCE. Whether any of them had a place in actual religious rituals remains unclear. Certainly, though, they preserve the essentials of Greek belief regarding their gods, as in this case with Gaia, the spirit of Mother Earth herself.

To Earth the Mother of All Line 1 I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store. 5 Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away. Happy is the man whom you delight to honour! He has all things abundantly: his fruitful land is laden with corn [that is, grain], his pastures are covered with cattle, 10 and his house is filled with good things. Such men rule orderly in their cities of fair women: great riches and wealth follow them; their sons exult with ever-fresh delight, 15 and their daughters in flower-laden bands play and skip merrily over the soft flowers of the field. Thus it is with those whom you honour, O holy goddess, bountiful spirit. 17 Hail, Mother of the gods, wife of starry Heaven, freely bestow upon me for this my song substance that cheers the heart! And now I will remember you and another song also. Source: “Homeric Hymn 30: To Earth Mother of All,” in Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, translated by H. G. Evelyn-White, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1914), 457.

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LYSIAS ON THE MURDER OF AN ADULTERER (403 BCE) In the Athenian court system, litigants had no attorneys but rather had to present their own cases; still, they often commissioned expert orators to compose the speeches that they would address to the jury. This was the case with Euphiletus, who hired Lysias of Syracuse (c. 445–c. 380 BCE), a metic or resident alien who made his living as a speechwriter and teacher of rhetoric in Athens. Euphiletus had killed a fellow citizen, Eratosthenes, for having an adulterous affair with his wife. Athenian law permitted the husband to do this when catching the adulterer in the act, but the relatives of Eratosthenes hauled Euphiletus in on charges of premeditated homicide.

4 . . . what I have to show is that Eratosthenes had an intrigue with my wife, and not only corrupted her but inflicted disgrace upon my children and an outrage on myself by entering my house; that this was the one and only enmity between him and me; that I have not acted thus for the sake of money, so as to raise myself from poverty to wealth; and that all I seek to gain is the requital accorded by our laws. . . 6 When I, Athenians, decided to marry, and brought a wife into my house, for some time I was disposed neither to vex her nor to leave her too free to do just as she pleased; I kept a watch on her as far as possible, with such observation of her as was reasonable. But when a child was born to me, thenceforward I began to trust her, and placed all my affairs in her hands, presuming that we were now in perfect intimacy. 7 It is true that in the early days, Athenians, she was the most excellent of wives; she was a clever, frugal housekeeper, and kept everything in the nicest order. But as soon as I lost my mother, her death became the cause of all my troubles. 8 For it was in attending her funeral that my wife was seen by this man [Eratosthenes], who in time corrupted her. . . . 15 .  .  . an interval occurred in which I was left quite unaware of my own injuries; I was then accosted by a certain old female, who was secretly sent by a woman with whom that man was having an intrigue. . . . This woman was angry with him and felt herself wronged, because he no longer visited her so regularly, and she kept a close watch on him until she discovered what was the cause. So the old creature accosted me. . . , and said,—“Euphiletus, . . . 16 . . . the man who is working both your and your wife’s dishonour happens to be our enemy. . . . It is,” she said, “Eratosthenes of Oe who is doing this; 17 he has debauched not only your wife, but many others besides; he makes an art of it.”. . . I was at once perturbed . . . and I was filled with suspicion,—reflecting first how I was [once] shut up in my [bed]chamber [by my wife], and . . . how on that night the inner and outer doors made a noise, which had never occurred before, and how it struck me that my wife

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had put on [makeup]. All these things came into my mind, and I was filled with suspicion. 18 . . . I told [our servant-girl] I was fully informed of what was going on in my house: “So it is open to you,” I said, “. . . Tell no lies, but speak the whole truth.” 19 The girl at first denied it . . . but when I mentioned Eratosthenes to her, and said that he was the man who visited my wife, . . . supposing that I had exact knowledge of everything 20 . . . she accused him, first, of approaching her after the funeral, and then told how at last she became his messenger; how my wife in time was persuaded, and by what means she procured his entrances, and how at the Thesmophoria, while I was in the country, she went off to the temple with his mother. And the girl gave an exact account of everything else that had occurred. 21 When her tale was all told, I said,—“ . . . I require that you show me their guilt in the very act; I want no words, but manifestation of the fact, if it really is so.” 22 She agreed to do this . . . [About five days later, Euphiletus invited his friend Sostratus over for dinner. That night, after he went to bed, the servant-girl awakened him to find Eratosthenes in his house.] 24 . . . I called on one friend and another, and found some of them at home, while others were out of town. 25 I took with me as many as I could among those who were there. . . . We pushed open the door of the bedroom, and the first of us to enter were in time to see him lying down by my wife; those who followed saw him standing naked on the bed. I gave him a blow, sirs, which knocked him down, and pulling round his two hands behind his back, and tying them, I asked him why he had the insolence to enter my house. He admitted his guilt; then he besought and implored me not to kill him, but to exact a sum of money. 26 To this I replied, “It is not I who am going to kill you, but our city’s law, which you have transgressed and regarded as of less account than your pleasures, choosing rather to commit this foul offence against my wife and my children than to obey the laws like a decent person.” 27 Thus it was, sirs, that this man incurred the fate that the laws ordain for those who do such things; he had not been dragged in there from the street, nor had he taken refuge at my hearth, as these people say. For how could it be so, when it was in the bedroom that he was struck and fell down then and there, and I pinioned his arms, and so many persons were in the house that he could not escape them . . . ? 28 But, sirs, I think you know as well as I that those whose acts are against justice do not acknowledge that their enemies speak the truth, but lie themselves and use other such devices to foment anger in their hearers against those whose acts are just. 30 .  .  .You hear, sirs, how the Court of the Areopagus itself, to which has been assigned, in our own as in our fathers’ time, the trial of suits for murder, has

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expressly stated that whoever takes this vengeance on an adulterer caught in the act with his spouse shall not be convicted of murder. Source: Lysias with an English Translation, edited and translated by W. R. M. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1930–1988), 7–19. Perseus Digital Library. http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1& query=Lys.+1 (March 4, 2019)

MENANDER ON LOVE TROUBLES AND SOCIAL MORES (LATE FOURTH CENTURY BCE) The Athenian playwright Menander (c. 342–c. 291 BCE) represented for the ancient Greeks the best in New Comedy, the “sit-coms” of their world. Many of his plays dealt with love troubles and social mores. These passages from The Girl from Samos are illustrative. Demeas, a wealthy Athenian, lives in love with his mistress Chrysis, a woman from the island of Samos; as a foreigner, she can never lawfully marry Demeas, but they live together as if they were married, something apparently not that uncommon in Athens of the fourth century BCE. After a long absence, however, Demeas returns and comes to suspect, at first that Moschion, his adopted son, has had a clandestine relationship with Plangon, daughter of their neighbor and friend Niceratus, and, later that Moschion and Chrysis have had an affair. Whose baby is being raised now in Demeas’ house, Plangon’s or Chrysis’? And why is Moschion so willing now to marry Plangon, which his father insists upon? Out of propriety? Out of love for the girl? To hide his affair with his father’s mistress?

DEMEAS [confronting his chief slave, PARMENON] You’re holding something back from me. I’ve noticed it. . . . The baby? Whose is he? PARMENON (confused) I say—the baby—why— DEMEAS Is whose, I ask. PARMENON Well—Chrysis’s. DEMEAS Its father, who?

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PARMENON ’Tis yours. DEMEAS You’re done for. You are cheating me. PARMENON What, I? DEMEAS I know the whole precisely; know about the child That it is Moschion’s; that you are in the plot, She suckles now the child she says she didn’t bear! [CHRYSIS was able to nurse the baby because—to further complicate the story!—she had, in fact, given birth to Demeas’ child during his absence, but the infant had soon died.] PARMENON But who says that? DEMEAS I saw it—Nay, but tell me this, What is [the truth]? . . . [PARMENON escapes into the house and DEMEAS begins to talk to himself regarding his suspicions toward CHRYSIS.] . . . [Moschion]’s cleared himself, for when this marriage scheme [to Plangon] was broached He eagerly gave ear. For not because in love, As then I thought, was he so eager, but because He wished at last to shun my “Helen” there within. For [Chrysis] I hold responsible for what has chanced. She came upon him, we’ll suppose, when drunk, forsooth, And not himself. Many a deed like this is wrought Through youth’s incontinence, when Opportunity, Who plots against his neighbour, gets the upper hand. For not at all does this seem credible to me That he, so orderly, and continent towards all Outsiders, now should prove to be like this towards me; Not though he ten times were adopted, not my son

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By blood. For I don’t think of that. His character I mark. But she’s a common woman of the slums, A pest, a—nay, why rage? By that, O Demeas, You’ll get no further. Now you needs must be a man; Forget your longing; cease from loving; and conceal, As far as may be, for your son’s sake, this mischance That has occurred, and thrust headforemost to the crows, Out of your house, this evil Samian. You have A pretext, too, because she took that baby in. For you must not make clear a single thing beside. Endure and set your teeth. Bear up like a high-bred man. [He then enters into a heated domestic quarrel with CHRYSIS, chasing her out of the house.] DEMEAS (blocking her way) High and mighty business, this! Now you, when on the town, will know just what you are. The girls of your sort, Chrysis, earn as courtesans Their scant ten drachmas as they run nowhere, now there, To dinners, drinking to excess until they die Or slowly starve, if they don’t find death ready-made And quick. You’ll find this out as soon as anyone, I’ll warrant, and you’ll know yourself and your mistake. [NICERATUS arrives to find CHRYSIS crying outside.] NICERATUS . . .Why, what on earth’s the matter? CHRYSIS That fine friend of yours Has turned me out. What would you more? . . . NICERATUS Why? CHRYSIS Upon this child’s account.

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NICERATUS Now from my women-folk myself I’d heard of this, That you’ve adopted and are bringing up a child. A crack-brained scheme! But he’s an innocent, he is. . . . CHRYSIS . . . He burst in like a madman in the midst of all And barred me out of doors. [DEMEAS later discovers the whole truth about the baby and lets slip to NICERATUS that the child is actually the latter’s illegitimate grandchild. The latter then confronts his own wife and daughter, as well as CHRYSIS, all of whom attempt to guard the baby, whom NICERATUS intends to kill as illegitimate.] NICERATUS Chrysis has my wife persuaded not a single fault to own; What is more, my daughter neither. She by force the baby holds; Says she will not hand him over. Hence you need not be surprised If this hand of mine shall slay her. [CHRYSIS comes running from the house of NICERATUS, the baby in her arms. NICERATUS, a club in his hand, is in hot pursuit. He has overheard enough to infer that MOSCHION is father of the child.] DEMEAS Calm yourself. NICERATUS You do me mischief, Demeas. You’re shown up plain. You know all about the matter. DEMEAS Well, then, get your facts from me. Leave the woman unmolested. NICERATUS (suspiciously) Yes, but there’s your son, I say. Was I not by him bamboozled?

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DEMEAS Nonsense! He will wed the girl. . . . [After brawling for a bit with DEMEAS, NICERATUS is finally placated, especially by the repeated promise of MOSCHION “doing right” by Plangon.] [Despite the unjustified suspicions thrown at CHRYSIS and MOSCHION, the character who seems to have come off most “hurt” in the story, in typical New Comedy fashion, is the slave, PARMENON, who laments:] PARMENON (to himself ) By Zeus the highest, I have been done a deed That’s senseless and contemptible. Not one thing wrong I’d done and yet I feared and from my master ran. Pray, what was there that I had done to warrant this? Come, point by point, just let us clearly face the facts. First item: “My young master wronged a free-born girl.” But Parmenon, I take it, surely does no wrong. “She’s found with child.” But Parmenon is not to blame. “The little baby made its way into the house—Our house.” ’Twas he that brought it in, not I. “Some one Of those within has owned to this.” Now what of that? How here has Parmenon done wrong? In not one thing. Why did you run away then? What is that, you fool? “Well, then, he scared me.” That’s absurd. “He threatened me, Said he’d tattoo me. Brand a name.” It makes no whit Of difference if ’tis justly or unjustly done; Say what you will, tattooing’s not polite! Source: “The Girl from Samos,” in Menander, The Principal Fragments, translated by F. G. Allinson, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1921), 147–149, 153, 161–169, 175, 183–185.

THE OLD OLIGARCH ON THE PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRACY (LATER FIFTH CENTURY BCE) Not everyone in Athens approved of the democratic system that had evolved there; many, in fact, found faults in its politics and flaws in the sort of society

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1.1 As for the constitution of the Athenians, their choice of this type of constitution I do not approve, for in choosing thus they chose that rascals should fare better than good citizens. . . . 1.4 . . . [S]ome folk are surprised that everywhere they give the advantage to rascals, the poor and the democrats rather than to good citizens. This is just where they will be seen to be preserving the democracy. For if the poor and the common folk and the worse elements are treated well, the growth of these classes will exalt the democracy; whereas if the rich and the good citizens are treated well the democrats strengthen their own opponents. 1.5 In every land the best element is opposed to democracy. Among the best elements there is very little license and injustice, very great discrimination as to what is worthy, while among the commons there is very great ignorance, disorderliness and rascality; for poverty tends to lead them to what is disgraceful, as does lack of education and the ignorance which befalls some men as a result of lack of means. 1.6 It may be said that [the Athenians] ought not to have allowed everyone in turn to make speeches or sit on the Council, but only those of the highest capability and quality. But in allowing even rascals to speak they are also very well advised. For if the good citizens made speeches and joined in deliberations, good would result to those like themselves and ill to the democrats. As it is anyone who wants, a rascally fellow maybe, gets up and makes a speech, and devises what is to the advantage of himself and those like him. . . . 1.10 The license allowed to slaves and aliens at Athens is extreme and a blow is forbidden there, nor will a slave make way for you. I shall tell you why this is the custom of the country. If it were legal for a slave or an alien or a freedman to be beaten by a freeman, you would often have taken the Athenian for a slave and struck him; for the commons there does not dress better than the slaves and the aliens, and their general appearance is in no way superior. . . . 1.13 . . . At any rate the commons demands pay for singing, running, dancing and voyaging, in order that its wealth may increase and the rich become less rich. In the law-courts they do not pay more heed to justice than to their own gain. . . . 1.15 This then is why they disfranchise the good citizens, rob them of their  wealth, drive them into exile, or put them to death, while they exalt the rascals. . . .

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1.18 As it is all the allies individually must fawn upon the Athenian commons, realizing that they must come to Athens and appear as defendant or prosecutor before the commons and the commons alone, for that forsooth is the law at Athens. . . . 2.3 Of such mainland states as are subject to Athenian rule the large are in subjection because of fear, the small simply because of need; there is not a city which does not require both import and export trade, and it will not have that unless it is subject to the rulers of the sea. . . . 2.17 Again oligarchical states must abide by their alliances and their oaths. If they do not keep to the agreement penalties can be exacted from the few who made it. But whenever the commons makes an agreement it can lay the blame on the individual speaker or proposer, and say to the other party that it was not present and does not approve what they know was agreed upon in full assembly; and should it be decided that this is not so, the commons has discovered a hundred excuses for not doing what they may not wish to do. If any ill result from a decision of the commons it lays the blame on a minority for opposing and working its ruin, whereas if any good results they take the credit to themselves. . . . 2.19 I say then that the commons at Athens realizes which citizens are good citizens and which rascals. With this knowledge they favour those who are friendly and useful to them, even if they are rascals, whereas they hate rather the good citizens. For they do not believe that their worth exists for the good but for the ill of the commons. . . . 3.3 It is said that if you approach the Council or the commons with a bribe your business will be dealt with. I would agree that much is got through at Athens by means of bribery, and that still more would be got through if still more people gave bribes. . . . Source: The Old Oligarch, Being the Constitution of the Athenians ascribed to Xenophon, chapter 1, sections 1, 4–6, 10, 13, 15, and 18, chapter 2, sections 3, 17, and 19, and chapter 3, section 3, translated by J. A. Petch (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1910), 15–18, 21, 24–26.

PINDAR CELEBRATES A WRESTLING CHAMPION (C. 463 BCE) Archaic Greeks came to believe that the gods enjoyed watching the physical striving of humans in athletic events and some even asserted that victory in sports was the closest thing to divine immortality that any human could hope for. This was certainly the view of Pindar of Thebes (c. 518–c. 446 BCE), a poet who made his living for nearly four decades composing victory odes at the great Panhellenic games of the Greek world. To Pindar, Greek athletes were heroes who through sheer energy, strength, and force of will pursued excellence. Here he heralds the success of a young wrestler, his family, and his community.

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FOR ALCIMIDAS OF AEGINA WINNER IN THE BOYS’ WRESTLING-MATCH One is the race of men, one is the race of gods, and from one mother do we both derive our breath; yet a power that is wholly sundered parteth us, in that the one is naught, while for the other the brazen heaven endureth as an abode unshaken for evermore. Albeit, we mortals have some likeness, either in might of mind or at least in our nature, to the immortals, although we know not by what course, whether by day, no nor yet in the night watches, fate hath ordained that we should run. Even now doth Alcimidas prove to all eyes that the inborn valour of his race resembleth the corn-bearing fields, which in changing seasons, at one while, give to man abundant sustenance from the plains, and, at another while, gather strength by repose. Lo! from the lovely games of Nemea hath now returned that athlete boy, who, following this heaven-sent destiny, hath now shone forth no luckless hunter in the wrestling ring, by planting his step in the foot-prints of his own true grandsire, Praxidamas. For he, as an Olympian victor, was the first to bring sprays from the Alpheus to the sons of Aeacus and by winning the garland five times at Isthmus, and thrice at Nemea, put an end to the obscurity of Socleides, who was the eldest born of the sons of Hagesimachus; since, to his joy, the very crown of prowess was attained by those athletes who made trial of the toil and, by favour of heaven, no other house hath the contest in wrestling proclaimed the possessor of more garlands in the very heart of all Hellas. Now that I have uttered this mighty vaunt, I trust I have hit the mark, as though I were shooting with the bow. Come, O my Muse, waft to this victor a glorious breeze of song. For, when heroes have passed away, lays and legends treasure for them their

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noble deeds, and in these the house of Bassus is not wanting. A clan of ancient fame, laden with a goodly cargo of their own renown, they are well fitted by their gallant deeds to provide a rich theme of song to those who till the Muses’ field. For, likewise in hallowed Pytho, a scion of this clan, with his hands bound with the cestus, was victorious, even Callias, who erstwhile found favour with the children of Leto with the golden distaff; and, beside Castalia he was glorified at eventide by the loud chorus of the Graces; and the unwearied bridge of the sea paid honour to Creontidas in the biennial festivals, when bulls are slain in the sacred precinct of Poseidon; and the lion’s herb of Nemea crowned him once on a time, when he was victor beneath the shady primeval mountains of Phlius. To those who are skilled in ancient story, broad on every side are the avenues that lie open for glorifying this famous island, since the race of Aeacus bestowed on them that dwell therein a distinguished destiny, by setting forth an ensemble of great virtues; and their name hath winged its way afar, over the land and across the sea. Even to the Ethiopians hath it sped its flight when Memnon returned not to his home; for Achilles flung on them a heavy conflict, when he stepped down to the ground from his chariot, what time he slew the son of the gleaming Dawn with the edge of his wrathful sword. This was the theme, which the bards of old found for their beaten path, and I myself am following in their steps, while I meditate my theme; yet it is ever the wave that is rolling nearest to the vessel, which causeth most concern to the mind of every mariner. But I, who am bearing on my willing shoulders a double burden, have come as a messenger to proclaim that thou, Alcimidas, hast won for thy famous family this five and twentieth triumph, from the games which men call holy. Two crowns

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indeed of the Olympic contest beside the sacred precinct of the hill of Cronus were robbed from thee, the youthful victor, and from Polytimidas, by a lot at random drawn. Of Melesias, as [your] trainer deft in strength of hands, I would say that in speed he is a match for the dolphin that darteth through the brine. Source: “Nemean 6,” in The Odes of Pindar, translated by Sir John Sandys, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1915), 369–375.

PLUTARCH ON FATHER (PHILIP) AND SON (ALEXANDER) (SECOND CENTURY CE) In his Parallel Lives, the Greek priest, philosopher, and biographer, Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45–c. 125 CE), sought to develop insights into human nature, human character, and human relationships by studying the vices, virtues, and careers of notable Greeks and Romans. He began his ambitious project with a biography of the most famous personality in ancient times, Alexander III of Macedon, known as the Great. His Alexander provides a glimpse into one of the outstanding examples of dysfunctionality between father and son from the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the relationship between Alexander, ever jealous, and his father Philip II of Macedon, usually proud of, but always in unfortunate tension with, his son.

4.5 For it was neither every kind of fame nor fame from every source that [Alexander] courted, as Philip did, who plumed himself like a sophist on the power of his oratory, and took care to have the victories of his chariots at Olympia engraved upon his coins. . . . 5.1 He [Alexander] once entertained the envoys from the Persian king who came during Philip’s absence, and associated with them freely. He won upon them by his friendliness, and by asking no childish or trivial questions. . . . The envoys were therefore astonished and regarded the much-talked-of ability of Philip as nothing compared with his son’s eager disposition to do great things. 5.2 At all events, as often as tidings were brought that Philip had either taken a famous city or been victorious in some celebrated battle, Alexander was not very glad to hear them, but would say to his comrades: “Boys, my father will anticipate everything; and for me he will leave no great or brilliant achievement to be displayed to the world with your aid.” 5.3 For since he did not covet pleasure, nor even wealth, but excellence and fame, he considered that the more he should receive from his father the fewer would be the successes won by himself. . . .

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6.1 Once upon a time Philoneicus the Thessalian brought [the horse] Bucephalas, offering to sell him to Philip . . . , and they went down into the plain to try the horse, who appeared to be savage and altogether intractable, neither allowing any one to mount him, nor heeding the voice of any of Philip’s attendants, but rearing up against all of them. 6.2 Then Philip was vexed and ordered the horse to be led away, believing him to be altogether wild and unbroken; but Alexander, who was nearby, said: “What a horse they are losing, because, for lack of skill and courage, they cannot manage him!” 6.3 At first, then, Philip held his peace; but as Alexander many times let fall such words and showed great distress, he said: “Dost thou find fault with thine elders in the belief that thou knowest more than they do or art better able to manage a horse?” “This horse, at any rate,” said Alexander, “I could manage better than others have.” “And if thou shouldst not, what penalty wilt thou undergo for thy rashness?” “Indeed,” said Alexander, “I will forfeit the price of the horse.” There was laughter at this, and then an agreement between father and son as to the forfeiture, and at once Alexander ran to the horse, took hold of his bridlerein. . . . 6.4 And after he had calmed the horse a little . . . , when he saw that he was full of spirit and courage, he quietly cast aside his mantle and with a light spring safely bestrode him. . . . 6.5 Philip and his company were speechless with anxiety at first; but when Alexander . . . came back to them proud and exultant, . . . his father . . . actually shed tears of joy, and when Alexander had dismounted, kissed him, saying: “My son, seek thee out a kingdom equal to thyself; Macedonia has not [enough] room for thee.” 7.1 And since Philip saw that his son’s nature was unyielding and that he resisted compulsion, but was easily led by reasoning into the path of duty, he himself tried to persuade rather than to command him; . . . 7.2 he sent for the most famous and learned of philosophers, Aristotle, and paid him a noble and appropriate tuition-fee [to teach Alexander]. . . . 9.3 In consequence of these [military] exploits [of Alexander], then, as was natural, Philip was excessively fond of his son, so that he even rejoiced to hear the Macedonians call Alexander their king, but Philip their general. However, the disorders in his household . . . produced many grounds of offence and great quarrels between father and son, and these the bad temper of [Alexander’s mother] Olympias, who was a jealous and sullen woman, made still greater, since she spurred Alexander on. 9.4 The most open quarrel was brought on by Attalus at the marriage of Cleopatra, a maiden whom Philip was taking to wife [Philip was not monogamous]. . . . Attalus, now, was the girl’s uncle, and being in his cups, he called upon the Macedonians to ask of the gods that from Philip and Cleopatra there might be born a legitimate successor to the kingdom. At this Alexander was exasperated, and with the words, “But what of me, base wretch? Dost thou take me for a bastard?” threw a cup at him. 9.5 Then Philip rose up against him [Alexander] with

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drawn sword, but, fortunately for both, his anger and his wine made him trip and fall. Then Alexander, mocking over him, said: “Look now, men! here is one who was preparing to cross from Europe into Asia; and he is upset in trying to cross from couch to couch.”. . . 10.1 But when Pixodarus, the satrap of Caria, trying by means of a tie of relationship to steal into a military alliance with Philip, wished to give his eldest daughter in marriage to Arrhidaeus the [older] son of Philip,  .  .  . once more slanderous stories kept coming to Alexander from his friends and his mother, who said that Philip, by means of a brilliant marriage and a great connexion, was trying to settle the kingdom upon Arrhidaeus. 10.2 Greatly disturbed by these stories, Alexander sent Thessalus, the tragic actor, to Caria, to argue with Pixodarus that he ought to ignore the bastard brother, who was also a fool, and make Alexander his connection by marriage. And this plan was vastly more pleasing to Pixodarus than the former. But Philip, becoming aware of this, went to Alexander’s chamber, taking with him one of Alexander’s friends and companions, Philotas  .  .  . 10.3 and upbraided his son severely, and bitterly reviled him as ignoble and unworthy of his high estate, in that he desired to become the sonin-law of a man who was a Carian and a slave to a barbarian king. And as for Thessalus, Philip wrote to the Corinthians that they should send him back to Macedonia in chains. Moreover, of the other companions of Alexander, he banished . . . Harpalus and Nearchus, as well as Erigyius and Ptolemy. . . . 10.4 And so when Pausanias . . . slew Philip . . . a certain amount of accusation attached itself to Alexander. . . . 27.3 When Alexander had passed through the desert and was come to the place of the oracle, the prophet of Ammon gave him salutation from the god as from a father. . . . 27.5 And some say that the prophet, wishing to show his friendliness by addressing him with “O paidion,” or O my son, in his foreign pronunciation ended the words with “s” instead of “n,” and said, “O paidios,” and that Alexander was pleased at the slip in pronunciation, and a story became current that the god had addressed him with “O pai Dios,” or O son of Zeus. Source: “Alexander,” in Plutarch, The Parallel Lives, vol. 7, chapters 4–7, 9–10, and 27 (excerpts), translated by B. Perrin, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1919), 233–241, 245– 251, 305.

POETRY—GREEK POETS ON LOVE The topic of love, whether affectionate or erotic or both, held great popularity among the ancient Greeks from the earliest period of their poetry. Some poets praised the benefits of love while others decried its miseries. These examples, including those from the famous female love poet Sappho, should serve to

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Alcaeus of Lesbos (early sixth century BCE) (GA 5.10) I hate Love. Why doth not his heavy godship attack wild beasts, but shooteth ever at my heart? What gain is it for a god to burn up a man or what trophies of price shall he win from my head? Callimachus of Cyrene (early-mid third century BCE) (GA 5.146) The Graces are four, for besides those three standeth a new-erected one, still dripping with scent, blessed Berenice, envied by all, and without whom not even the Graces are Graces. Leonidas of Tarentum (early third century BCE) (GA 5.188) It is not I who wrong Love. I am gentle, I call Cypris [Aphrodite] to witness; but he shot me from a treacherous bow, and I am all being consumed to ashes. One burning arrow after another he speeds at me and not for a moment does his fire slacken. Now I, a mortal, shall avenge myself on the transgressor though the god be winged. Can I be blamed for self-defence? Meleager of Gadara (early first century BCE) (GA 5.212) The noise of Love is ever in my ears, and my eyes in silence bring their tribute of sweet tears to Desire. Nor night nor daylight lays love to rest, and already the spell has set its well-known stamp on my heart. O winged Loves, how is it that you are able to fly to us, but have no strength at all to fly away? Source: “Book V: Amatory Epigrams,” nos. 10, 46, 188, and 212, in Greek Anthology, translated by  W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1916), 1:133, 199, 221, and 233.

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Poseidippos of Pella (early-mid third century BCE) III BLIND DESIRE Tears and laughter: why, before I have rescued my feet from one of Kypris’ [Aphrodite’s] furnaces, do you drive me to another? Never do I find respite from love, but Desire, careless of my sufferings, is always seeking to add to it. Source: “Poseidippos Epigram III,” in The Windflowers of Asklepiades and The Poems of Poseidippos, translated by Edward Storer (London: Egoist, 1920), 20.

Sappho of Lesbos (late seventh/early sixth century BCE) (LG 1.2) It is to be a god, I think, to sit before you and listen close by to the sweet accents and winning laughter which have made the heart in my breast beat so fast and high. When I look on you, . . . my speech comes short or fails me quite, I am tongue-tied; in a moment, a delicate fire has overrun my flesh, my eyes grow dim and my ears sing, the sweat runs down me and a trembling takes me altogether, till I am as green and pale as the grass, and death itself seems not very far away. . . . (LG 2.54) As for me, love has shaken my heart as a down-rushing whirlwind that falls upon the oaks. (LG 7.130) I have a pretty little daughter who looks like a golden flower, my darling Cleis, for whom I would not take all Lydia, nay nor lovely [Lesbos].

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Primary Documents Source: “Sappho, Book 1: Sapphic Eleven-Syllable,” no. 2, “Sappho, Book 2: Fourteen-Syllable,” no. 54, and “Sappho, Book 7: Iambic and Trochaic,” no. 130, in Lyra Graeca, translated by J. M. Edmonds, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1922), 1:187, 223, and 273.

POETRY—GREEK POETS ON WAR Ancient Greek culture thrived on warfare from the start and heralded soldiers as the paragons of manly virtue. Greek poets, female and male, joined in the chorus of praise for those who risked their lives for their countries. The passages below serve to illustrate how Greek poetry on war was, then, tremendously patriotic, but also how it always recognized the sorrows and terrors of war and expressed a deep sense of appreciation for the sacrifices involved.

Alcaeus of Lesbos (early sixth century BCE) (LG 2.19) The great house is all agleam with bronze. War has bedecked the whole roof with bright helmets, from which hang waving horse-hair plumes to make adornment for the heads of men; the pegs are hidden with bright brazen greaves to ward off the strong arrow, corselets of new linen cloth and hollow shields are piled upon the floor, and beside them stand swords of Chalcidian steel, and many a doublet, many a kilt. These we cannot forget, so soon as ever we undertake this task. (LG 2.30) Not stone and timber, nor the craft of the joiner make the city; but wheresoever are men who know how to keep themselves safe, there are walls and there a city. Source: “Alcaeus, Book 2: War-Songs,” nos. 19 and 30, in Lyra Graeca, translated by J. M. Edmonds, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1922), 1:333–335, 341.

Anyte of Tegea (early third century BCE) (GA 7.724) Your valour, Proarchus, slew you in the fight, and you have put in black mourning by your death the house of your father Pheidias. But the stone above you sings this good message, that you fell fighting for your dear fatherland. Source: “Book VII: Sepulchral Epigrams,” no. 724, in The Greek Anthology, translated by W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1916), 2:385.

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Leonidas of Tarentum (early third century BCE) (GA 9.322) These spoils are not mine. Who hung this unwelcome gift on the walls of Ares? Undamaged are the helmets, unstained by blood the polished shields, and unbroken the frail spears. My whole face reddens with shame, and the sweat, gushing from my forehead, bedews my breast. Such ornaments are for a lady’s bower, or a banqueting-hall, or a court, or a bridal chamber. But blood-stained be the charioteer’s spoils that deck the temple of Ares; in those I take delight. Source: “Book IX: Declamatory Epigrams,” no. 322, in The Greek Anthology, translated by W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1917), 3:175.

Simonides of Ceos (late sixth/early fifth century BCE) On the Spartan war dead at Plataea: (GA 7.251) These men having clothed their dear country in inextinguishable glory, donned the dark cloud of death; and having died, yet they are not dead, for their valour’s renown brings them up from the house of Hades. On the Athenian war dead at Plataea: (GA 7.253) If to die well be the chief part of virtue, Fortune granted this to us above all others; for striving to ensure Hellas her freedom, we lie here possessed of praise that grows not old. Source: “Book VII: Sepulchral Epigrams,” nos. 251 and 253, in The Greek Anthology, translated by W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1919), 2:141.

Tyrtaeus of Sparta (mid-seventh century BCE) (EI 10) For ’tis a fair thing for a good man to fall and die fighting in the van for his native land, whereas to leave his city and his rich fields and go a-begging

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is of all things the most miserable, wandering with mother dear and aged father, with little children and wedded wife. For hateful shall such an one be among all those to whom he shall come in bondage to Want and loathsome Penury, and doth shame his lineage and belie his noble beauty, followed by all evil and dishonour. Now if so little thought be taken of a wanderer, and so little honour, respect, or pity, let us fight with a will for this land, and die for our children and never spare our lives. Abide then, O young men, shoulder to shoulder and fight; begin not foul flight nor yet be afraid, but make the heart in your breasts both great and stout, and never shrink when you fight the foe. And the elder sort, whose knees are no longer nimble, fly not ye to leave them fallen to earth. For tis a foul thing, in sooth, for an elder to fall in the van and lie before the younger, his head white and his beard hoary, breathing forth his stout soul in the dust, with his privities all bloody in his hands, a sight so foul to see and fraught with such ill to the seer, and his flesh also all naked; yet to a young man all is seemly enough, so long as he have the noble bloom of lovely youth, aye a marvel he for men to behold, and desirable unto women, so long as ever he be alive, and fair in like manner when he be fallen in the vanguard. So let each man bite his lip with his teeth and abide firm-set astride upon the ground. (EI 12) I would neither call a man to mind nor put him in my tale for prowess in the race or the wrestling, not even had he the stature and strength of a Cyclops and surpassed in swiftness the Thracian Northwind, nor were he a comelier man than Tithonus and a richer than Midas or Cinyras, nor though he were a greater king than Pelops son of Tantalus, and had

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Adrastus’ suasiveness of tongue, nor yet though all fame were his save of warlike strength, for a man is not good in war if he have not endured the sight of bloody slaughter and stood nigh and reached forth to strike the foe. This is prowess, this is the noblest prize and the fairest for a lad to win in the world; a common good this both for the city and all her people, when a man standeth firm in the forefront without ceasing, and making heart and soul to abide, forgetteth foul flight altogether and hearteneth by his words him that he standeth by. Such a man is good in war; he quickly turneth the savage hosts of the enemy, and stemmeth the wave of battle with a will; moreover he that falleth in the van and loseth dear life to the glory of his city and his countrymen and his father, with many a frontwise wound through breast and breastplate and through bossy shield, he is bewailed alike by young and old, and lamented with sore regret by all the city. His wife and his children are conspicuous among men, and his children’s children and his line after them; nor ever doth his name and good fame perish, but though he be underground he liveth evermore, seeing that he was doing nobly and abiding in the fight for country’s and children’s sake when fierce Ares brought him low. But and if he escape the doom of outstretched Death and by victory make good the splendid boast of battle, he hath honour of all, alike young as old, and cometh to his death after happiness; as he groweth old he standeth out among his people, and there’s none that will do him hurt either in honour or in right; all yield him place on the benches, alike the young and his peers and his elders. This is the prowess each man should this day aspire to, never relaxing from war. Source: Elegy and Iambus with an English Translation in Two Volumes, edited and translated by J. M. Edmonds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1931– 1982), 69–71, 75–77. Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseu s%3Atext%3A2008.01.0479%3Avolume%3D1%3Atext%3D11%3Asection%3D2 (March 4, 2019)

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THEOCRITUS DESCRIBES WOMEN AT A FESTIVAL (EARLY THIRD CENTURY BCE) In this short story, a mime (theatrical episode) or idyll (vignette in very polished style), the Syracusan poet Theocritus (late fourth/early third century BCE) portrays an experience in the lives of two women who have moved from Syracuse to the bustling metropolis of Alexandria, capital of Egypt under the Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty. Gorgo and Praxinoa thus introduce us to the stereotypical world of the ancient Greek housewife in the Hellenistic Era and to conditions in the big city at holiday time.

THE [SYRACUSAN] WOMEN AT THE ADONIS FESTIVAL GORGO (with her maid Eutychis at the door, as the maid Eunoa opens it) [1] Praxinoa at home? PRAXINOA (running forward) Dear Gorgo! at last! . . . I quite thought you’d forgotten me. (to the maid) Here, Eunoa, a chair for the lady, and a cushion on it. . . . GORGO (sitting) [4] O what a silly I was to come! What with the crush and the horses, Praxinoa, I’ve scarcely got here alive. It’s all big boots and people in uniform. And the street was never-ending, and you can’t think how far your house is along it. PRAXINOA [8] That’s my lunatic [husband]; came and took one at the end of the world, and more an animal’s den, too, than a place for a human being to live in, just to prevent you and me being neighbours, out of sheer spite, the jealous old wretch! He’s always the same. GORGO [11] My dear, pray don’t call your good Dinon such names before Baby. See how he’s staring at you. (to the child) It’s all right, Zopyrion, my pet. It’s not dad-dad she’s talking about. PRAXINOA [14] Upon my word, the child understands. GORGO Nice dad-dad.

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PRAXINOA [15] And yet that dad-dad of his the other day—the other day, now I tell him ‘Daddy, get mother some soap and rouge from the shop,’ and, would you believe it? Back he came with a packet of salt, the great six feet of folly! GORGO [17] Mine’s just the same. Diocleidas is a perfect spendthrift. Yesterday he gave seven [drachmae] a piece for mere bits of dog’s hair, mere pluckings of old handbags, five of them, all filth, all work to be done over again. But come, my dear, get your cloak and gown. I want you to come with me (grandly) to call on our high and mighty Prince Ptolemy to see the Adonis. I hear the Queen’s getting up something quite splendid this year. . . . [25] . . . sightseers make good gossips, you know, if you’ve been and other people haven’t. It’s time we were on the move. . . . PRAXINOA [38] . . . (to Eunoa) Come, put on my cloak and hat for me, and mind you do it properly. (Eunoa puts her cloak about her head and shoulders and pins the straw sun-hat to it). (taking up the child) No; I’m not going to take you, Baby. Horsebogey bites little boys. (the child cries) You may cry as much as you like; I’m not going to have you lamed for life. (to Gorgo, giving the child to the nurse) Come along. Take Baby and amuse him, Phrygia, and call the dog indoors and lock the front-door. (in the street) GORGO [44] Heavens, what a crowd! How we’re to get through this awful crush and how long it’s going to take us, I can’t imagine. Talk of an ant-heap! PRAXINOA [51] Gorgo dearest! what shall we do? The Royal Horse! Don’t run me down, my good man. That bay’s rearing. Look, what temper! Stand back, Eunoa, you reckless girl! He’ll be the death of that man. Thank goodness I left Baby at home! GORGO [56] It’s all right, Praxinoa, We’ve got well behind them, you see. They’re all where they ought to be, now. PRAXINOA (recovering) [57] And fortunately I can say the same of my poor wits. Ever since I was a girl, two things have frightened me more than anything else, a horrid chilly snake and a horse. . . .

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GORGO (to an Old Woman) [60] Have you come from the palace, mother? OLD WOMAN Yes, my dears. GORGO Then we can get there all right, can we? OLD WOMAN [61] Trying took Troy, my pretty; don’t they say where there’s a will there’s a way? GORGO [63] That old lady gave us some oracles, didn’t she? PRAXINOA (mock-sententiously) [64] My dear, women know everything. They know all about Zeus marrying Hera. . . . [66] Give me your arm, Gorgo; and you take hold of Eutychis’ arm, Eunoa; and you take care, Eutychis, not to get separated. We’ll all go [into the palace] together. Mind you keep hold of me, Eunoa. Oh dear, oh dear, Gorgo! my summer cloak’s torn right in two. (to a stranger) For Heaven’s sake, as you wish to be saved, mind my cloak, sir. . . . GORGO (referring, as they move forward towards the dais inside the palace, to the draperies which hang between the pillars) [78] Praxinoa, do come here. Before you do anything else I insist upon your looking at the embroideries. How delicate they are! and in such good taste! They’re really hardly human, are they? PRAXINOA [80] Athena! the weavers that made that material and the embroiderers who did that close detailed work are simply marvels. How realistically the things all stand and move about in it! They’re living! It is wonderful what people can do. And then the Holy Boy [the statue of Adonis]; how perfectly beautiful he looks lying on his silver couch, with the down of manhood just showing on his cheeks,—(religiously) the thrice-beloved Adonis, beloved even down below! . . .

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GORGO [96] Be quiet, Praxinoa. She’s just going to begin the song, that Argive person’s daughter, you know, the “accomplished vocalist” that was chosen to sing the dirge last year. You may be sure she’ll give us something good. Look, she’s making her bow. . . . [The vocalist sings of Adonis reunited with Aphrodite and of Queen Berenice tending his shrine and asks that Adonis visit the people of Alexandria with blessings for another year.] GORGO [143] O Praxinoa! what clever things we women are! I do envy [the vocalist] knowing all that, and still more having such a lovely voice. But I must be getting back. It’s Diocleidas’ dinner-time . . . ; I wouldn’t advise anyone to come near him even, when he’s kept waiting for his food. Goodbye, Adonis darling; and I only trust you may find us all thriving when you come next year. Source: “Theocritus Idyll 15,” in The Greek Bucolic Poets, translated by J. M. Edmonds, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1912), 177–195.

THUCYDIDES ON THE CORCYRAEAN REVOLUTION (427 BCE) The people of Corcyra, a Greek island west of the Greek mainland, had made themselves allies of Athens in its rivalry with Corinth; this was one of the factors that contributed to the start of hostilities between Athens and the alliance to which Corinth belonged, the Peloponnesian League. Yet not all the Corcyraeans favored the Athenian side and those who did not precipitated a violent civil war that became a pattern for others across the Greek world in the years to come. Thucydides of Athens (c. 460–c.400 BCE) in his History of the Peloponnesian War provides his understanding of what happened in this and other revolutions, not just based on written evidence and interviews with participants but also on his assessment of human nature.

3.70.1 The Corcyraean revolution began with the return of . . . prisoners [by the Corinthians]. . . . These men proceeded to . . . intrigue with the view of detaching the city from Athens. . . . 3 [They] brought Peithias, a [friend] of the Athenians and leader of the commons, to trial, upon the charge of enslaving Corcyra to Athens. . . . 6 [After failing in this, five of these men] armed with daggers, and suddenly bursting into the [Council] killed Peithias and sixty others. . . . 3.72.2 .  .  . the dominant Corcyraean party [“oligarchs”] attacked the commons and defeated them in battle. 3 Night coming on, the commons took refuge in the Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, and concentrated themselves there,

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having also possession of the Hyllaic harbour; their adversaries occupying the market-place, . . . , and the harbour adjoining. . . . 3.73.1 The next day passed in skirmishes of little importance. . . . 3.74.1 After a day’s interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining with the commons, who had the advantage in numbers and position. . . . 3 Hostilities now ceasing, both sides kept quiet. . . . 3.76.1 [Several days later] . . . Peloponnesian ships arrived [and scored a victory over the Corcyraean commoners and their Athenian allies.] 3.79.1 The Corcyraeans now feared that the [Peloponnesians] would follow up their victory and sail against the town. . . . 3.80.2 But the Peloponnesians . . . were informed by beacon signals of the approach of sixty Athenian vessels . . . under the command of Eurymedon. . . . 3.81.1 The Peloponnesians accordingly at once set off in haste by night for home.  .  .  . 4 During seven days that Eurymedon stayed [at Corcyra]  .  .  .  , the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those of their fellow citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of the moneys owed to them. 5 Death thus raged in every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there. 3.82.1 So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur [during the Peloponnesian War]. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians. In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties. 2 The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same. . . . In peace and prosperity, states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master, that brings most men’s characters to a level with their fortunes. 3 Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of

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their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. 4 Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. 5 The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.. . .7 The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation . . . only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious vengeance sweeter than an open one. . . . Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first. 8 The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, . . . on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape. 3.83.1 . . . The ancient simplicity into which honour so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. . . . 3 In this contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had recourse to action: 4 while their adversaries . . . often fell victims to their want of precaution. 3.84.2 . . . In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the cities, human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its master, gladly showed itself

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ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy of all superiority. . . . 3 Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required. Source: Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, book 3, chapters 70–84, translated by Richard Crawley (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1910), 166–172.

XENOPHON ON THE ROLES OF WIFE AND HUSBAND (C. 362 BCE) Ancient Greek men believed that the only reputable occupation for a woman was household manager. We find this traditional view expressed by Xenophon of Athens (c. 430–c. 354 BCE) in his Oeconomicus, which treats of household management in the form of a dialogue between Critobulus and Xenophon’s friend and mentor, Socrates. In the following passages, Socrates describes his encounter with a respectable Athenian fellow named Ischomachus and what he learned from him about the division of labor, cooperation, and goals proper to a successful husband and wife.

7.4 ‘Ah, Ischomachus,’ said I, ‘. . . Did you yourself train your wife to be of the right sort, or did she know her household duties when you received her from her parents?’ 5 “ ‘. . . She was not yet fifteen years old when she came to me, and up to that time she had lived in leading-strings, seeing, hearing and saying as little as possible. 6 . . . in control of her appetite, Socrates, she had been excellently trained; and this sort of training is, in my opinion, the most important to man and woman alike.’ ” . . . 9 ‘Pray tell me, Ischomachus, what was the first lesson you taught her . . . ?’ 10 “ ‘Well, Socrates, . . . I questioned her to this effect: “ ‘ “Tell me, dear, have you realised for what reason I took you and your parents gave you to me? 11 . . . I for myself and your parents for you considered who was the best partner of home and children that we could get. My choice fell on you, and your parents, it appears, chose me as the best they could find. 12 Now if God grants us children, we will then think out how we shall best train them. For one of the blessings in which we shall share is the acquisition of the very best of allies and the very best of support in old age; but at present we share in this our home. 13 For I am paying into the common stock all that I have, and you have put in all that you brought with you. And we are not to reckon up which of us has actually

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contributed the greater amount, but we should know of a surety that the one who proves the better partner makes the more valuable contribution.” 14 “ ‘My wife’s answer was as follows, Socrates: “How can I possibly help you? What power have I? Nay, all depends on you. My duty, as my mother told me, is to be discreet.” 15 “ ‘ “Yes, of course, dear,” I said, “my father said the same to me . . . ” 16 “ ‘ “ . . . you must try to do as well as possible what the gods made you capable of doing and the law sanctions.” . . . 17 “ ‘ “Things of no small moment, . . . , “unless, . . . , the tasks over which the queen bee in the hive presides are of small moment. 18 For it seems to me, dear, that the gods with great discernment have coupled together male and female, . . . , chiefly in order that they may form a perfect partnership in mutual service. 19 . . . [T]hat the various species of living creatures may not fail, they are joined in wedlock for the production of children. [O]ffspring to support them in old age is provided by this union, to human beings, at any rate. [H]uman beings live not in the open air, like beasts, but obviously need shelter. 20 Nevertheless, those who mean to win store to fill the covered place, have need of someone to work at the open-air occupations; since ploughing, sowing, planting and grazing are all such open-air employments; and these supply the needful food. 21 Then again, as soon as this is stored in the covered place, then there is need of someone to keep it and to work at the things that must be done under cover. Cover is needed for the nursing of the infants; cover is needed for the making of the corn into bread, and likewise for the manufacture of clothes from the wool. 22 And since both the indoor and the outdoor tasks demand labour and attention, God from the first adapted the woman’s nature, I think, to the indoor and man’s to the outdoor tasks and cares. . . . 24 “ ‘ “And knowing that he had created in the woman and had imposed on her the nourishment of the infants, he meted out to her a larger portion of affection for new-born babes than to the man. 25 And . . . knowing that he who deals with the outdoor tasks will have to be their defender against any wrong-doer, he meted out to him . . . a larger share of courage. 26 But because both must give and take, he granted to both impartially memory and attention; and so you could not distinguish whether the male or the female sex has the larger share of these. 27 And God also gave to both impartially the power to practice due self-control, and gave authority to whichever is the better whether it be the man or the woman to win a larger portion of the good that comes from it. 28 And just because both have not the same aptitudes, they have the more need of each other, and each member of the pair is the more useful to the other, the one being competent where the other is deficient. 29 “ ‘ “Now since we know, dear, what duties have been assigned to each of us by God, we must endeavour, each of us, to do the duties allotted to us as well as possible. 30 The law, moreover, approves of them, for it joins together man and

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woman. And as God has made them partners in their children, so the law appoints them partners in the home. And besides, the law declares those tasks to be honourable for each of them wherein God has made the one to excel the other. . . . 36 . . . “ ‘ “ . . . your duty will be to remain indoors and send out those servants whose work is outside, and superintend those who are to work indoors, and to receive the incomings, and distribute so much of them as must be spent, and watch over so much as is to be kept in store, and take care that the sum laid by for a year be not spent in a month. . . .”. . . 42 “ ‘ “ . . . But the pleasantest experience of all is to prove yourself better than I am, to make me your servant; and, . . . , to feel confident that with advancing years, the better partner you prove to me and the better housewife to our children, the greater will be the honour paid to you in our home. 43 For it is not through outward comeliness that the sum of things good and beautiful is increased in the world, but by the daily practice of the virtues.” ’ ” Source: Xenophon, Oeconomicus, chapter 7, sections 4–6, 9–22, 24–30, 36, 42–43, translated by E. C. Marchant (London: William Heinemann, 1923), 415–429.

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Index

Page numbers in italics indicate photographs. Abandonment and abortion, 213–216 abortion practice and controversy, 215–216 and gender of the child, 214, 242 legality of abandonment, 214 motives for abandonment, 214 rescue of abandoned children, 214–215 responsibility and rights of, 213–214 and rites of naming and introduction to community, 214 rules of abandonment, 214 Spartan policy of abandonment, 215 Abortion. See Abandonment and abortion Acropolis, 445–449 acropolis (high cities), 446 Corinth acropolis, 446 definition of, 445–446 history of, 445–446 Pergamum acropolis, 448–449 regional terrain and height of acropolis, 446 Spartan acropolis, 446

Thebes acropolis (the Cadmea), 447 See also Acropolis of Athens Acropolis of Athens, 445–449 Erechtheum, 19, 131, 148, 184, 448, 501 location, 447–448 and Pericles, 448 Temple of Athena Nike, 448, 763–764 Temple of Athena Polias, 448, 717 visible ruins, 447, 448 See also Parthenon (Temple of Athena Parthenos) Actors, 102–104 families of actors, 103 focus on voice and gesture, 102 function of, 102 guilds, 103–104 mimus (mime), 104 in New Comedy, 104 in Old Comedy, 102 terracotta statuette of comic actor from ancient grave in Attica, 103 traveling actors (“skilled ones” of Dionysus), 102–103 943

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Adoption, 216–218 of adult male citizens, 217 advantages for adoptees, 217 and family gender roles, 216 posthumous adoption, 218 process of, 217 purpose of, 217 regulations for, 216 of relatives, 217 Adultery, 218–222 adulterous women, 220–221 case of Euphiletus and Eratosthenes of Athens, 219, 908–910 gender inequalities, 219 and issues of citizenship, 219–220 and justifiable homicide provisions, 219 lack of legal provisions for in Sparta, 221 Lysias of Syracuse on murder of an adulterer (403 BCE) (primary document), 908–910 and polygamy, 221 regional differences in punishment for, 220 regulations against, 218–219 Aeschines background and oratorical skills, 171 confrontation with Demosthenes, 171, 885–887 on peace and warfare, 637 Aeschines on foreign negotiation and domestic mud-slinging (343 BCE) (primary document), 885–887 on Demosthenes’ duplicity and misrepresentation, 886–887 on Demosthenes’ public silence and collapse, 886

on first audience with Philip II, 885–886 on second audience with Philip II, 886 Aeschylus Agamemnon, 637 on death, 232, 249 on democracy, 566 Dionysian artists’ revivals of plays by, 98 Eumenides, 285 family of, 103, 302, 310 on fathers and mothers, 285 on infants, 232 legend of female audience miscarriages, 309 Oresteia trilogy, 648 Orphism on, 761 Persians, 704 significance of, 98 staging of his first play in Athens, 96 Suppliant Maidens (also Suppliants), 566, 714, 724 on the underworld, 714 on vengeance, 724 on warfare, 637 Afterlife/underworld, 712–715 Classical Age, 714 Epicureans on, 714–715 Hall of Hades, 712–713 Hesiod on, 713–714 in the Odyssey (Homer), 713–714 Pindar on, 714 “punished” sinners in Greek underworld, 713–714 Stoics on, 714–715 terracotta jar depicting Cerberus with Hermes, Athena, and Heracles, 713

Index

Agriculture, 105–109 cereal grains, 106 challenges of Greek farming, 105 farming in Athens, 105 farming in Sparta, 105 farming on Greek islands, 105–106 gender roles, 107–108 harvesting, 106–107 olive farming, 107, 418–421 size of farms, 107 and slavery, 107 Alcaeus of Lesbos Aeolic Greek of, 834 “The great house is all agleam with bronze” (primary document), 924 “I hate Love” (primary document), 922 on viticulture, 208 Alcaeus of Mytilene, 54, 55, 205 Alexander the Great courtesan of, 692 death of, 13, 522, 601, 729–730 deification of, 729–730 depictions of, 8, 21, 68 and drunkenness, 376, 377 and exploration voyage of Nearchus of Crete, 824 grooming, hairstyle, and dress, 321, 340, 344, 345 and Hephaistion, 20, 272 impact on development of Skepticism, 45–46 mercenaries used by, 583 Plutarch on relationship between Alexander and his father (primary document), 919–921 renovation of canal system, 484 style of helmet worn by, 531

training regimen for troops, 521–522 tutored by Aristotle, 286, 842, 882 visit to oracle of Ammom (Egyptian god), 757–758 See also Alexander the Great, wars of Alexander the Great, wars of, 518–523 Alexander’s return of war dead, 601, 636 Battle of Chaeronea, 273, 550, 601, 636 Battle of Gaugamela, 520 Battle of Issus, 21, 519–520 Battle of the Granicus River, 518–519 Battle of Thebes, 447, 520 calvary in, 550 capture and burning of Persepolis, 520–521, 692 context and background, 518 impact and legacy of, 522, 805, 828, 835, 882 “Indian” campaign, 521–522 large mosaic depicting defeat of Darius III by Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus, 519 maritime policy, 601 siege of Gaza, 520 siege of Halicarnassus, 519 siege of Miletus, 519 siege of Sogdian Rock, 521 siege of Tyre, 520, 627–628 siege technology in, 627–628 significance of, 518, 522, 597–598 and social revolution, 189 Alliances. See Leagues/alliances

945

946

Index

Alphabet, 785–788 alphabetic numeral notation, 854 creation of Greek alphabet, 455 discovery of Dipylon Inscription, 786, 788 in education, 812–813 Greek adaptation of Phoenician alphabet, 786–787 greenstone polyhedron inscribed with letters of the Greek alphabet, 787 popularity and varied uses of, 787–788 significance of Greek phonetic alphabet, 785–786, 788 West Semitic system of writing, 786 Anatomy Alcmaeon of Croton, 798–799 dissection and vivisection, 799, 820, 883 Erasistratus of Ceos, 471, 799, 800, 820, 883 Galen of Pergamum, 800, 820, 883 Herophilus of Alexandria, 117 Herophilus of Chalcedon, 116, 117, 799–800, 820, 883 Marinus of Alexandria, 800, 883 and sculpture, 64, 317 Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, 794, 798, 809, 866, 882 Anaximander of Miletus About Nature, 808 and biology, 797 and cosmology, 793, 808–809 and discovery of the sundial, 874 first known theory of evolution developed by, 797, 819–820 and physics, 866–867 and prototype astrolabe, 861 and zoology, 881

Andro-n and Gynaiko-nitis, 281, 449–451 andro-n (men’s segregated residential section), 450 and children, 281, 450–451 gynaiko-nitis (women’s segregated residential section), 450 origin of custom of sex separation, 450 Animal husbandry, 109–114 animal grazing and border disputes, 111–112 aristocratic families, 111 in Attica, 111 fowl, 109 limestone statue of a ram-bearer, 110 limits from natural environment, 111 in literature, 109 livestock, 109 and need for diversification, 109 and nomadism, 110 plow oxen and mules, 109 shepherds and shepherding, 112–113 in Sparta, 110–111 in Thessaly, 112 transhumance pasturage, 109 Antisthenes, 38–39, 58 Anyte of Tegea funereal poetry, 15–16, 245, 248 success of, 15–17, 311 on women and sexuality, 313–314 “Your valour, Proarchus, slew you in the fight” (primary document), 924 Apothecaries/pharmacology, 114–118 and botany, 803

Index

and cosmetics, 332, 334 Dioscorides of Cilicia (physician/ pharmacologist), 116, 416, 425, 803 education and training, 116 history of, 114 home-based medicines, 116 local flora and fauna used, 115–116 manuals and recipes, 116–117 mythology of, 114 poisons, 421 and potions, 425 skills and knowledge needed, 114–115 Architecture. See Housing architecture; Temple architecture Aristocracies, 523–526 associations, 524 Classical Age, 525–526 Dark Age, 525 defense of power and status, 523 and democracy, 524 and execution of Socrates, 525 and hoplite armies, 524 in literature, 526 pro-Spartan oligarchies, 524–525 and social revolution, 526 Thirty Tyrants, 525 Aristophanes of Athens Acharnians, 220, 647 Assemblywomen, 403 Assemblywomen excerpt (primary document), 887–892 on bathhouses, 320 Birds, 768 on chickens, 426 Clouds, 117, 168, 286, 461, 587, 673, 813–814 on the elderly, 181

as example of Middle Comedic playwright, 94 as example of Old Comedic playwright, 94, 95 on food, 404, 405, 413, 433 on footwear artisans, 337 Frogs, 761 Knights, 413 Lysistrata, 311 on property tax, 194 Aristophanes on ideal state run by women (392 BCE) (primary document), 887–892 Assembly’s decision to commit state to women, 890 Blepyrus and neighbor forced to wear wives’ clothing, 888 Praxagora, dressed as a man, accuses her husband, 888–890 Praxagora returns from Assembly, 891–892 Aristotle. See Aristotle, political theory of; Aristotle on familial friendship; Philosophy, Aristotle Aristotle, political theory of, 527–530 break with Plato, 527 and eudaimonia (maximum flourishing or happiness), 527– 528, 529 family as building block of constitutions, 527 limited government participation, 529 moderate form of government (politeia) to prevent sociopolitical decay, 528–529 need for differentiated political systems, 528 purpose of good government, 529

947

948

Index

Aristotle on familial friendship (fourth century BCE) (primary document), 892–894 friendship of children to parents, 893–894 friendship of kinship versus friendship of comrades, 893 parental friendship, 893 spousal friendship, 894 Arms and armor, 530–535 Archaic Period, 534 body armor, 532 Classical Age, 533, 534 “Corinthian” helmets of Alexander the Great, 531–532 doru (lance or spear), 533, 550 Hellenistic Era, 534 helmets, 531–532 kne-mides (bronze greaves or shin guards), 532 krane- or koruthes (metal helmets), 531–532 kunai (close-fitting cap made of leather), 531 linotho-rax (heavy linen and leather vest), 532 machaira (machete-like sword), 534 Mycenaean Greeks, 530, 532 shields, 532–533 terracotta jar depicting one warrior on his knees struggling to defend himself against a standing warrior on the attack, 531 tho-rax (heavy linen and leather vest), 532 thrusting lances, 533–534 variation in weaponry, 534

xiphos (sword), 533, 534 xyston (machete-like sword), 534 Artificial power, 789–792 mechanized puppet theater and flute player, 790 pneumatics, 790 reference volumes on, 790–791 steam power, 791 water mills, 789 waterwheels, 789–790 wind power, 791 Assemblies, 535–539 of Aetolian League, 538 apella (Spartan assembly), 536 Archaic Period, 536 ekkle-sia (Athenian assembly of adult male citizens), 536–539 meetings, 537 Mycenaean Greeks and Homeric age, 535–536 and reforms of Cleisthenes, 537 and reforms of Ephialtes, 537 and reforms of Solon, 536–537 significance of, 535 voting, 537–538 See also Aristophanes on ideal state run by women Astronomy, 792–797 Anaximander of Miletus, 793, 808 origins of astronomia, 792 Pythagoras, 793, 808 Asylum, 716–718 disregard of, 717 etymology of the term, 716 Hellenistic Era, 717 mythological origins of, 716 respect for, 716–717 Athena Parthenos, Temple of. See Parthenon

Index

Athenian Constitution, 539–543 and ekkle-sia (Athenian assembly), 540–541 history of, 539–540 and reforms of Cleisthenes, 541–542 and reforms of Solon, 540–541 See also Old Oligarch on problems of democracy Athletics, 640–643 aristocratic origins of, 640 bronze figurine of Spartan girl running, 641 competitive nature of, 641–642 female athletes, 640 and gymnasia (public exercise grounds), 641 male athletes, 639 winners and awards, 642 See also Boxing; Olympic Games; Racing; Wrestling Bacchic worship, 718–721 disputed origins of Bacchus/ Dionysus, 718–719 public rituals and festivals, 720 state of bakcheia (“becoming Bacchus”), 719–720 Banditry. See Piracy and banditry Banking, 118–121 history of, 118 Pasion family case, 119–120 services and roles, 118–119 temples and financial services, 120–121 touchstones used to test for purity of coins, 118 trapezitai (professional bankers), 118 Banquets. See Feasts and Banquets

Bathing/baths, 317–321 bathhouses, 318–319 bathtubs, 318 Bronze Age, 318 Dipylon Baths, 318 frequency of bathing, 319 Greek contribution to public bathing, 317–318 Hellenistic Era, 320–321 home washbasins, 318 hypocaust technology for central heating of bathhouse water, 319 immersion tubs, 320–321 in literature, 320 Biology, 797–801 Anaximander of Miletus and first theory of evolution, 797–798 Archaic Period, 797 Aristotle, 799 Diocles of Carystos, 799 Empedocles of Akragas, 798–799, 882 Hellenistic Era, 799–800 mechanistic view of, 799–800 Praxagoras of Cos, 471, 799–800, 883 See also Anatomy Blended families, 222–226 and adoption, 223 in Greek mythology, 223, 224 and incest, 223 and nothoi (illegitimate children), 224–225 reasons for blended families, 222 relationships between household members and slaves, 225 relationships between stepparents and stepchildren, 223–224

949

950

Index

Body, attitudes toward, 321–325 abandonment of defective children, 324 aging bodies, 322–323 in art and literature, 321–324 and attitude toward kallos (beauty), 321 and beautiful souls, 322 and care of the body, 322 and Cnidian Aphrodite (first fully nude female image), 321–322 image of beautiful male body, 321 and infants, 321 makeup and clothing as manipulation of beauty, 322 nudity in males and females, 321–322 physical disabilities, 323–324 and physical training of male children, 321 and physiognomy, 322 Botany, 801–804 Aristotle, 802 Crateuas, 803 Late Classical emergence of the field, 801 Theophrastus of Lesbos, 116, 165, 392, 422, 802–803 treatises and manuals, 803 Boxing, 643–646 in art and literature, 643 Diagoras, 414, 643 fresco of boys boxing, 644 Hagesidamus, 643 hand protection, 643–644 and long-term endurance, 645 monitoring and judges, 644–645 and pankration (mixed martial art), 645

public boxing matches, 643 stance and technique, 644 Bread, 358–360 breadmaking process, 358–359 commercial bread bakers, 359 and enslaved workers, 359 grains used, 358 Hellenistic Era, 358 in literature, 358–360 tools used, 358 Burial, 226–228 blessing of the deceased, 227 cremation, 227, 453 in extra-mural (outside the walls) cemeteries, 227, 452–453 funeral meal, 227 gravesite libations, 227 inhumation, 227, 453 in literature, 227 mourners, 226–227 preparation of the body, 226 and wartimes deaths, 228 Calendars, 804–806 crescent of New Moon as beginning of calendar year, 805 “hollow” days, 805 and intercalation, 804 and length of seasons, 805 in literature, 806 and Metonic cycle of nineteen years, 804–805 month names, 805–806 octaeteris (intercalation calendar of about eight years), 804 quadrennial leap day, 805 variations by city-states, 804 Callimachus of Cyrene, 15, 17, 248, 265, 741

Index

“The Graces are four…” (primary document), 922 Carneades of Cyrene, 46–47 Carpentry, 121–125 and foresters, 122 goods and services, 123–124 Greek reverence for, 124 and social class, 121 specialized skills, 122 techniques and skills, 122–123 and temple construction, 124 tools used, 122 training, 122 workshops and home-based work, 122 Carthage, wars with, 543–547 background and context, 544 Battle of Himera, 544–545 Battle of Selinus, 545 Second Battle of Himera, 545 Siege of Akragas, 545 Siege of Motya, 545–546 significance of, 543–544 Cavalry, 547–551 and Alexander the Great, 550 in Athens, 547–548 Classical Age, 547 on Euboea, 547 Hellenistic Era, 550 interior of a terracotta drinking cup depicting Persian cavalryman standing behind his horse, 548 Macedonian Greeks, 549–550 regional variation of use of calvary in battle, 549 in Thebes, 549–550 in Thessaly, 547, 549 Cemeteries, 451–454 Archaic Period, 452

Bronze Age Mycenae, 451–452 burial on field of battle, 453 burial outside city limits in necropoleis (cities of the dead), 452–453 burial within community confines, 451–452 cremation, 227, 453 inhumation, 227, 453 reuse of burial sites, 454 significance of burial sites, 451–452 urns and sarcophagi, 453 Cheese and other dairy products, 360–364 cheese dishes and recipes, 361–362 cheese market, 362 cheesemaking, 361 digestion of, 363 fresh milk, 362–363 in literature, 360–361 Childbirth and infancy, 229–234 advice for pregnant women, 230 conception, 229 fertility rate, 229 fragment of small marble relief depicting a goddess standing before new mother and a midwife or wet nurse, 231 and genetic contributions of parents to children, 229 gestation, 229–230 home births, 231 infancy and child-rearing, 232–233 infant mortality, 232 labor, 230–231 in literature, 232 prediction of child’s sex, 230 and supernatural aids, 231–232 See also Midwives and wet nurses

951

952

Index

Childhood and youth, 234–238 adolescents, 236–237 in art, 237 children as family assets, 235 corporal punishment and other discipline, 235 definition of childhood, 234 sex differences, 234–235 small terracotta wine jug showing one little child pushing another in a cart, 236 and stages of human life, 234 weaned children grouped younger than and older than seven, 234–235 Chthonic spirits, 721–725 communal worship of, 724 definition of, 721 Demeter, 722 Eleusinian Mysteries, 722–723 Erinyes (Furies), 724 Gaia (Earth), 721–722 Hades, 723 Hecate, 723 Hermes, 723 history of, 721–722 Persephone, 723 and Zeus, 723–724 Citizenship, 551–554 definition of, 552 as hereditary legacy, 551 history of, 551 laws of, 552–553 power and privilege of, 551–552 women as, 552–553 City Dionysia, 646–650 additions and modifications made to, 648–649 cost of, 647 daily activities, 648 history of, 646

judges and competitions, 649 music of, 647–648, 649 procession and rituals of, 646–647 significance of, 649 theatrical plays, 648–649 City-states, 554–557 citizenship of, 555–556 and federal leagues, 556–557 number of, 555 origins and initial purpose of, 554 self-sufficiency of, 555 size of, 555 Civil war, 557–562 Archaic Period, 558 in Athens, 559–560 Classical Period, 558–559 in Corcyra, 558–559 Hellenistic Era, 558, 560 history of, 557–558 in Megara, 558 in Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, 561 in Seleucid Empire, 560 Clans/gene-, 238–241 Archaic period, 239–240 Bacchiad genos, 239–240 clans who performed sacred rituals for the gods, 240–241 Dark Age, 239 genos (any group sharing common background or characteristics), 238 history of, 239 and intermarriage, 239–240 obligations of, 239 Philaid genos, 240 Class structure and status, 650–655 Athenian census classes, 652 citizenship as indicator of class, 653 new and old rich Athenian families, 652

Index

occupation as indicator of, 651 residence as indicator of, 650–651 rich-poor divides, 651 spending habits as indicator of, 652 urban-rural divides, 651 Clothing, Classical Age, females, 325–329 chiton (linen or wool long tunic), 326 double chiton, 327–328 embroidery and colors, 328 inner garments, 326–327 marble statuette of a young woman wearing a sheer, 327 and modest, 325–326 outer coverings, 328 peplos (long piece of cloth tied at the shoulders), 327 Clothing, Classical Age, males, 329–331 chiton (linen or wool long tunic), 329–330 decorations and colors, 331 inner garment, 329, 330 length of chiton, 330 outer coverings, 330–331 Cloth-making, 125–128 access to textiles, 125–126 dyes, 126 embroidered fabrics, 127 flax (linen), 125–126 gender roles, 126 history of, 125 silk, 126 spinning, 127 terracotta oil flask with scenes of spinning and weaving, 127 weaving, 127–128 wool, 125–126

Colonization, 454–458 attitudes toward native populations, 457 colonial expeditions, 456 history of, 454–455 in modern western Turkey, 456 Naucratis, 455 Poseideion, 455 in Sicily and Southern Italy, 457 Comedy. See Theater, comedy Condiments and seasonings, 364–367 in dishes and recipes, 364–365 imports, 365–366 local herbs and spices, 364 in pickling, 365 salt, 365 sweeteners, 366 Cooking, 367–371 cookbooks, 369 food preparation, 367–368 and gender, 367–368 in literature, 369–370 as a profession, 369–370 roasting and broiling, 369 in rural areas, 367 tools and techniques used, 368–369 training, 369 in urban centers, 368 Cosmetics, 331–335 bronze standing mirror, 333 disapproval of, 334 eye makeup, 333 grooming tools and cosmetic instruments, 333–334 history of, 331–333 perfumes, 332–333 rouges, 332 skin whitening, 333 teeth whitening, 332

953

954

Index

Cosmology, 807–810 Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, 794, 798, 808–809, 866, 882 Anaximander of Miletus, 793, 808–809 origins and history of, 807 Pythagoras, 793, 808 Thales of Miletus, 807–808, 819, 860, 866 Cost of living, 129–132 cost of clothing, 129–130 cost of home furnishings, 129–130 costs of services, 130 drachma wage, 129 and frugality, 131 inflation of wages, 131 and jury duty, 131 purchase power of one drachma, 129 and slavery, 130–131 wealthy family and luxury goods, 131 Councils, 562–565 Boule- (Council of 500), 498, 506–507, 541–542, 564, 566, 621–623 Council of the Areopagus, 563 history of, 562 league council, 564 Spartan ruling councils, 562–563 Country life, 458–463 communal life, 460 daily life, 460 housing, 458 life expectancy, 461 in literature, 458 marketplaces, 458 pastoral poets and poetry, 461 population homogeneity, 460–461 religious celebrations, 460 travel to urban centers, 458–459

variations of, 458 warfare and military service, 461 work and occupations, 458, 461 Courtesans. See Prostitutes and courtesans Creation, 725–728 in Aesop’s fables, 727 creation of human beings by Zeus, 725–727 creation of human beings from earth and fire by Olympian gods, 727 creation of humans by Prometheus, 727 in Orphic Theogonies, 727 in Plato’s philosophy, 727 in Theogony (Hesiod), 725–726 Currency, 132–135 Athenian tetradrachm depicting head of Athena and her sacred owl, 134 Athens’ coinage, 133–134 coinage, 132–134 fiduciary currency, 134–135 history of, 132–133 markings by city-state, 133 metals used for, 134 terminology, 133 Cynics. See Philosophy, Cynics Dairy products. See Cheese and other dairy products Dance, 2–4 choral dances, 3 choros, 2 dances in honor of Bacchus or Dionysus, 3 and Greek identity, 4 professional dancers, 3–4 purpose of, 2 Pyrrhic dance, 2

Index

religious dances (emmeleia, kordax, and sikkinis dances), 2 ritual dance, 2, 3 war dances, 2 Daughters, 241–247 education of, 242 limiting number of, 242 marble funerary oil flask, depicting deceased Athenian daughter bidding farewell to her father, 243 in mythology, 245 ritual first haircutting, 242–243 roles of, 243–244 unmarried daughters, 243 Death and dying, 247–250 atomic theory of the soul, 247 death “before one’s time,” 248 death from old age, 248 mortality rates, 249 transmigration of the soul, 247 Debt, 135–138 debt bondage, 137 debt security, 135 and economic crises, 137 financial assistance from temples, 136 impersonal loans, 136 and merchants, 136–137 and wealthy families, 136 Deification, 728–730 and Alexander the Great, 729–730 and Antigonid Dynasty, 729–730 history of, 728–729 and Leonidas I, 728 and Philip II of Macedon, 729–730 Democracies, 565–570 Argos, 566 Athens, 565–567 common challenges, 569

percentage of democratic citystates, 565 Syracuse, 568–569 Tara, 568 Demosthenes, 171–172 Dessert, 371–374 cakes, 372–373 cheesecake, 372 honey, 371–372 nuts, 374 Diogenes Laertius on the philosopher Hipparchia (third century CE) (primary document), 894–895 on double standards, 895 on Hipparchia’s love of discourses and Crates, 894 on Hipparchia’s marriage, 894–895 Diogenes of Sinope, 38–39, 48 Dioscorides of Cilicia, 116, 416, 425, 803 Diplomacy, 570–575 arbitration and treaties, 573–574 requests for military assistance, 573 xenia (guest-friendship) custom, 570–571 Divination. See Prophecy and divination Divorce, 250–254 compelled divorce, 252–253 fraudulent divorce, 253 men who divorced women, 250–251 return of dowry, 251 women who divorced men, 251–252 Drunkenness, 374–378 and barbarism, 375–376 group drunkenness, 376 history of, 374 in literature, 377 notable examples, 376, 377

955

956

Index

Education, 810–814 children of farmers, 810 and Greek performance culture, 814 literacy, 812–813 schooling outside the home, 811–812 and social status, 813–814 terracotta vessel depicting a schooling scene, 812 Eggs. See Poultry, birds, and eggs Eleusinian mysteries, 731–735 announcement of starting date, 731 Greater Mysteries, 731–733 Lesser Mysteries, 731 preparation for, 731 promises of, 731 scandal of sacrilege of Alcibiades the Alcmaeonid, 733–734 secrecy of, 733 votive relief depicting Demeter, Triptolemus, and Persephone, 732 Empedocles of Akragas and biology, 798–799, 882 and democracy, 568 design for Selinus drainage system, 484 and physics, 866–867 theory of attraction and repulsion, 798, 809 theory of four roots (humors) of existence, 471, 798, 857, 866 and vegetarianism, 437, 438–439 and zoology, 892 Engineering, 815–818 architectural engineers, 815–816 mechanical engineering, 816–817 military technology, 817 Entertainers, popular, 654–658 acrobats, 654–655 marketplace and street corner entertainers, 655

musical entertainment, 655–656 street theater, 656–657 Epic poetry. See Poetry, epic Epicureans. See Philosophy, Epicureans Epidemic disease. See Plague/ epidemic disease Ethnos, 575–579 and Aetolian League, 577 etymology and definition of, 575–576 variations in government, 576 variations in terrain, 578 Euripides, 98 Aristophanes on mother of, 310 Cyclops, 60 on warfare, 637 Euripides on women’s tragedy of surviving war (415 BCE) (primary document), 895–900 Andromache’s farewell to her doomed son, 899–900 message of ordered execution of Hecuba’s grandson, 898–899 on Polyxena’s death, 895–898 Experimentation and research, 818–823 anatomy, 820–822 astronomy, 819 libraries, 821–822 and mechanistic model of human body, 820–821 optics, 819 scholarship in the arts, 823 Exploration, 823–826 of Atlantic Ocean, 824–825 of Black Sea, 824 and land hunger, 823 military explorations, 823–824 of Nearchus of Crete, 824 Extended family, 254–258

Index

complimentary functions within, 255 elderly family members, 255–256 kin endogamy, 257 responsibilities to shared kinship, 257 Famine and food supply, 378–382 famine, 380–381 and war, 378–380 Fathers, 258–262 formal acknowledgment of children, 258–259 legal power of, 258 responsibility to find mates for daughters, 259 responsibilities to sons, 260 Feasts and banquets, 382–387 community dining hall meals, 384 religious feasts, 383 state-sponsored banquets, 384 wedding banquets, 382 Festivals, 658–663 Aiora (swinging festival), 660 Arrhephoria (fertility festival), 660–661 Athenian festivals, 659–661 Carneia, 658–659 festivals of thanksgiving, 660 festivals to Hephaestus, 661 Haloa (festival in honor of Demeter, Kore, and Dionysus), 659 Pyanopsia (festival of abundance), 661 Spartan festivals, 658–659 Fishing, 138–141 deep-sea diving, 139–140 history of, 138–139 hook-and-line, 138–139 man-made fisheries, 140

nets, 139 sea creatures as pets, 140–141 spears, 139 water depths, 139 whaling, 140 Food supply. See Famine and food supply Footwear, 335–338 boots, 336–337 preference for bare feet, 335 sandals, 335–336 shoes, 336 terracotta perfume vase formed in shape of right foot in a sandal, 336 Foreign dress, 338–341 cloaks, 339 footwear, 338 headgear, 349 trousers, 338–339 tunics, 339 Foreigners. See Resident aliens, immigrants, and foreigners Fortifications, 463–466 Archaic Period, 465 Bronze Age, 464–465 Classical Age, 46 Cyclopean walls, 464–465 Hellenistic Era, 466 history of, 463–464 Lion Gate at Mycenae, 464 Long Walls, 465 Friendship and love, 262–267 fear of passionate love, 267 philia, 263–266 Greek drinking cup painted with image of Achilles bandaging Patroclus during the Trojan War, 263 types of friendship, 263 words for love, 265

957

958

Index

Fruits and nuts, 387–390 figs, 388–389 fruit dishes and preparation, 388 most common fruits, 387 nuts, 389 terracotta mixing bowl, or krater, 388 Furniture and furnishings, 466–469 artificial light, 468 flooring, 469 furniture for sleeping, 467–468 furniture for sitting, 467 furnishings for heating, 468–469 tables, 468 trunks and baskets, 468 Galen of Pergamum and anatomy, 800, 820, 883 imperial court physician, 116, 800 on pregnancy, 230 significance of, 800, 858–859 treatises on drugs, 116–117 Geography, 826–830 Bronze Age, 827 climate zones and continents, 828 coinage of term geographia, 826 Eratosthenes of Cyrene, 805, 825, 828–829 Herodotus, 827–828 Scylax of Caryanda, 10, 823, 827 Geometry, 830–834 applications, 832–833 Archimedes of Syracuse, 832 Archytas of Tarentum, 831–832 conic sections, 832 Euclid, 832 Hippocrates of Chios, 831 history of, 830–831 Philo of Byzantium, 833

properties of circles and triangles, 831 Pythagoras, 831 solid geometry, 831–832 Thales, 831 Gold and silver, 4–9 embossing, 6, 7 engraving, 6, 7 gold (chrysos), 4 gold death masks, 6, 7 hammering, 5, 6 inlaying, 6 legacy of Greek techniques and styles, 7 luxury objects, 7 Lydian methods of refining gold, 5 “Mask of Agamemnon,” 6 parting and cupellation techniques, 5 patronage for artisans, 7 silver (argyros), 4 Grains, 390–393 barley, 391–392 millet, 392 oats, 392 wheat, 391 Grandparents, 267–271 Greek language groups, 834–836 Aeolic Greek, 834 “Classical” Greek, 835 Doric Greek, 834 Hellenistic Era, 835 Ionic Greek, 834 Mycenaean Greek, 834 Gymnasia/palaestrae, 663–667 common features, 664–665 etymology of palaestra, 663 location of, 664 and philosophers, 665–666

Index

ruins of the main exercise building, or palaestra, at Olympia, 665 supervision of, 664 Gynaiko-nitis. See Andro-n and Gynaiko-nitis Hairstyles, 341–344 Athenian hairstyles, 342–343 marble head of woman illustrating a complex hairstyle, 342 and occupations, 343 Spartan hairstyles, 341–342 Headgear, 344–347 Health and illness, 469–474 children’s diseases, 472 common illnesses, 471–472 healing experiences at the shrines of Asclepius, 470–471 humoral theory of the human body, 471 illness from displeasure from the gods, 470, 473 mental illness, 473 respiratory illnesses, 471–472 rheumatoid illnesses, 472 sexually transmitted diseases, 472 Hellanicus of Lesbos, Genealogies and Journey around the World, 10 Herodotus of Halicarnassus on conscription into colonial expeditions, 456 on dividing day into twelve hours, 875 earliest use of the word de-mokratia (rule by the people), 566 on Egyptian oracle of Ammon, 757 on geography and ethnography, 827–828 Histories, 10–11, 827

on madness of the Spartan king Cleomenes I, 473 on ocean exploration, 824–825 on political constitutions, 528 on prophecies and interpreters of prophecies, 768 on warfare, 637, 638 Herodotus on Gelon’s refusal to join the Greek Alliance (481 BCE) (primary document), 900–902 departure of Greek envoys for home, 902 envoy’s refusal of Gelon’s conditions, 901 Gelon’s comparison of Hellas deprived of his alliance to a year without spring, 902 Gelon’s condition of being general and leader of the Greeks, 901 Greek envoys’ entreaty to Gelon, 900–901 Heroes. See Myths and heroes Herophilus of Chalcedon, 116, 117, 799–800, 820, 883 Hesiod on animal husbandry, 109 on drunkenness, 375, 377 on farms and farming, 143, 150 on loans and debt, 135 on means of daily living, 101 on milk, 362 on Pandora, 322 on physical disabilities, 323 on trade, 200 on the underworld, 713–714 on women, 313 Works and Days, 109 on Zeus’s freeing of the Hekatoncheires, 412

959

960

Index

Hesiod on values of life (eighth century BCE) (primary document), 902–904 on base gain, 904 on giving willingly and taking shamefully, 904 on idleness and work, 904 on justice, 903 on violence, 903 Hipparchia, Diogenes Laertius on (third century CE) (primary document), 894–895 on double standards, 895 on Hipparchia’s love of discourses and Crates, 894 on Hipparchia’s marriage, 894–895 “Hippocrates” on diagnosis and observation of illnesses (late fifth century BCE) (primary document), 905–907 on fever in pregnant wife of Epicrates, 906–907 on fevers, 905–906 on judgment of disease by general and particulars, 905 Hippodromes. See Stadiums and hippodromes History, 9–13 atthis (a local history), 10 chronicles, 9–10 Greek contributions to, 10–12 Hellanicus of Lesbos (Genealogies and Journey around the World), 10 Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Histories), 10–11 historia, 9 logopoioi (authors of local history and ethnography), 10

Scylax of Caryanda, 10 Thucydides (“Father of Scientific History”), 11–12 Homeric hymn to Mother Earth (date unknown) (primary document), 907–907 Homosexuality, 271–275 in literature, 273–274 pederastic relationships, 271–272 and social class, 271–272 and women, 273 Hoplite soldiers, 579–584 Athenian grave marker depicting hoplite soldier about to attack a fallen enemy, 580 definition of, 579 hoplite training, 579–581 rations and equipment, 581 reliance on, 583–584 Spartan hoplite training, 581 typical tactic of forward push against enemy ranks, 582 Horse racing, 667–670 chariot racing, 667–668 history of, 667 in literature, 668–669 jockeys, 667 whips, 667 Hospitality, 393–396 Household religion, 474–479 alters, 476–477 doorway inscriptions, 474 enclosed courtyard statues, 476 juniper-wood statuette of Hekate, 475 rituals of sorrow, 478 stone piles or markers (hermae), 474–475 Triple Hecate, 475–476 and wine, 477

Index

Housing architecture, 479–481 enclosed courtyard, 479 rooms in house, 479 open-air courtyard, 480 size, 480–481 walls and flooring, 479–480 Hunting and wild game, 396–399 gilt-silver paten, or phiale. decorated with four young men hunting deer on horseback, 397 Hygiene, 347–351 Illness. See Health and illness Immigrants. See Resident aliens, immigrants, and foreigners Infancy. See Childbirth and infancy Infrastructure, 481–488 bridges, 483–484 canals and harbors, 484–487 history of, 481–482 roads and streets, 482 Inheritance, 275–278 Inscriptions, 836–841 limestone block inscribed by Phaidimos with a funerary epitaph dedicated to Chairedemos by his father Amphichares, 837 Isocrates, 58, 83, 153, 170–171, 593, 637, 813 Jewelry, 351–356 gold armband with Heracles knot and inlaid with garnets, emeralds, and enamel, 353 Justice and punishment, 584–590 Archaic Period, 585 Bronze Age, 584–585 Dark Age, 585 Hellenistic Era, 583

jury courts, 586–587 penalty phase, 588 trials, 587–588 Kitchens/kitchen utensils, 399–402 terracotta drinking cup, known as Cassel Cup, 401 Landownership, 141–145 agricultural property holdings, 143–144 collective property rights, 144 confiscation of land, 142 and gender, 143 history of, 141–142 marriage traditions and property holdings, 142–143 and self-sufficiency, 141 Leagues/alliances, 590–594 Legumes, 402–405 chickpeas, 403 fava or broad bean, 403 lentils, 402–403 peas, 404 vetches, 404 Leisure activities, 670–674 animals and pets, 672 games and contests, 673–674 holidays, 670 music and dancing, 671 reading, 673 terracotta tumbler depicting eight dancing youths, 672 Leonidas of Tarentum, 16, 461 “It is not I who wrong Love” (primary document), 922 “These spoils are not mine” (primary document), 925 Libations and offerings, 735–738

961

962

Index

Libraries and literacy, 841–845 influence of Aristotle on, 842 libraries, 841–844 Library of Alexandria, 842–843 literacy, 844 Linear A and Linear B, 845–848 clay tablet inscribed with text in Linear B script, 846 Literacy. See Libraries and literacy Literature, Hellenistic, 13–18 Alcaeus of Messene, 16, 248 Antipater of Sidon, 16 Anyte of Tegea, 16–17, 245, 248, 311, 313–314, 925 Apollonius of Rhodes, 14–15, 425 Aratus of Cilicia, 16, 796 Callimachus of Cyrene, 15, 17, 248, 265, 741, 922 definition of Hellenist Era, 13 diatribe, 14 epigrams, 15–17 female poets, 15 Idylls (vignettes of everyday experiences), 15 Leonidas of Tarentum, 16, 461, 922, 925 Meleager of Gadara, 15, 17 Metrodorus, 16–17 military poetry, 16 Nossis of Locri, 16, 692 parody, 14 Parthenius of Nicaea, 15 political poetry, 16 Poseidippos of Pella, 16–17 Sapphic poetry, 15–16 Sappho of Lesbos, 15, 55, 265, 272, 311, 834, 923 satire, 13–14 Sotades of Maronea, 14

Theocritus of Syracuse, 15, 310, 424, 928–931 Liturgies, euergetism, and welfare, 674–679 euergetism, 676–677 liturgies, 675–676 welfare and benefactors, 677–678 Love. See Friendship and love Lyric poetry. See Poetry, lyric Lysias of Syracuse, 58, 172, 183, 219, 587, 691, 813 Lysias of Syracuse on murder of an adulterer (403 BCE) (primary document), 908–910 Machines, 848–852 Magic, 738–742 Malnutrition. See Nutrition and malnutrition Marketplaces, 488–492 central marketplace, or agora, at Athens, and Acropolis, 489 Markets. See Merchants and markets Marriage, 278–281 ages of groom and bride, 279 arranged marriages, 279 Spartan marriage customs, 279–280 See also Xenophon on roles of wife and husband Masonry, 145–149 dressing stone, 147 groove-and-clamp placements, 148 quarries and stone extraction, 145–146 splitting moving stone, 146–147 stone preparation, 147 stone selection, 147 strength and skills needed, 148 Mathematics and numeracy, 852–855 Meals, 405–408

Index

breakfast, 405 midday meal, 406 and social class, 406 stages of meals, 406 Meat, 408–411 beef, 409 butchering, 410 goats, 410 pigs, 409–410 sheep, 410 and social class, 408–409 Medicine, 855–860 Men, 281–285 male children, 281–282 and marriage, 283 military training, 282 young adult males, 282–283 Menander of Athens, 83, 94–95, 420, 476, 910–914 excerpt from The Girl from Samos on love troubles and social mores (primary document), 910–914 on foods that are necessities of life, 420 as New Comedy playwright, 95 Merchants and markets, 149–155 (asylia) assylum protection for foreign merchants, 153 grain trade, 152 history of, 149–150 local merchants, 150–151 in Odyssey (Homer), 154 resident-aliens as merchants, 152 travel and absence from community life, 151–152 Metal-refining, 155–158 hammering and grinding, 155 smelting, 155–156 washing and dressing, 155 working conditions, 157

Metalworking, 158–161 bronze works, 160–161 foundries, 160 history of, 159–160 ironsmiths, 160 lost-wax bronze casting, 159–160 tools and techniques, 159–160 workshops, 160 Midwives and wet nurses, 161–164 difficult births, 162 famous midwives and wet nurses, 163 midwife advice texts and manuals, 162 midwives and home births, 162 midwives and postpartum care, 162 roles and responsibilities of midwives, 162 wet nursing and shared childrearing, 163 Mining, 164–168 city-state ownership of below-land minerals, 166 copper mining, 165 enslaved and criminal miners, 165 gold mining, 167 industry growth due to demand for metals, 164 iron mining, 165 monarch-owned mines, 166 regional deposits, 166 tin mining, 165 ventilation and drainage, 167 working conditions, 164, 166–167 zinc mining, 165 Monarchies, 594–597

963

964

Index

Mosaics, 18–22 Battle of Issus mosaic at House of the Faun in Pompeii, 21 Dionysus Riding a Panther mosaic, 20 Greek techniques, 20 legacy of Greek figural mosaics, 20, 21 lithokolle-tos, lithostro-tos (mosaic art), 18 materials and techniques, 19 mosaic depicting lion hunt, 20 Sosus of Pergamum, 21 as source of aesthetic values, 19 Stag Hunt mosaic, 19–20 in wealthy homes, 19 Mothers, 285–289 influence on children, 286–287 lack of legal authority, 285 motherhood as rite of passage, 285 relationships with children, 287–288 Mourning/memorialization, 289–293 mourning of possibilities, 292 professional mourners, 290–291 ritual sacrifices, 291 terracotta funerary plaque depicting laying out of the dead, or prothesis, 290 Music, 22–25 essential element of Greek education, 22 and the gods, 23 instrumental innovations, 24 mousike-, 22 percussion instruments, 24–25 singing as main focus, 24 stringed instruments, 22–23 wind instruments, 23–24

Myths and heroes, 742–750 terracotta jar, or amphora, illustrating capture of Cretan Bull by Heracles, 750 Navies, 597–603 Archaic Period, 597 Athenian navy, 599 Classical Age, 597, 600 costs of, 599 Hellenistic Era, 601–602 history of, 597–598 myth of slave crews, 599 and Peloponnesian War, 600–601 purpose of raids and amphibious assaults on territory, 599–600 scarab-shaped gemstone engraved with image of ancient Greek warship, or trireme, 598 Spartan navy, 600–601 and wind power, 599 Navigation, 860–863 history of, 860 principles and techniques of, 860–861 and triangulation of pole star, 860–861 and underwater shoals or reefs, 861 and weather, 861–862 winds and sails, 861–862 Nectar and ambrosia, 411–414 ambrosia in mythology, 411–414 etymology and definition of ambrosia, 411–412 names for Greek food and drink, 414 nectar in mythology, 411–413 Nutrition and malnutrition, 414–418 anemia, 415

Index

benefits and detriments of food abundance, 415–416 dietetics, 416–417 fluoride and iodine, 415 food preservation methods, 415–416 grain consumption, 415 and humoral theory of the body, 417 poverty and chronic malnutrition, 416 vitamin and mineral deficiencies, 415 Offerings. See Libations and offerings Old Oligarch on problems of democracy (later fifth century BCE), 914–916 on alliances and oaths, 916 on enfranchisement and disenfranchisement, 915 on good citizens and rascals, 915–916 on slaves and aliens, 915 Olives and olive oil, 418–421 Archaic Period processing, 419 Bronze Age processing, 419 Hellenistic Age processing, 420 in literature, 420 olive harvesting, 419 olive oil, 419–420 olive presses, 420 olive tree domestication, 418 olive tree propagation, 418 ripe and pickled olives, 419 rotary olive crusher, 419–420 sacredness of olive trees, 420 types of and preferences for olives, 419 wild olive trees native to Greece, 418

Olympian gods, 750–753 anthropomorphizing of, 752 Ares and Aphrodite, 752 Artemis, Dionysus, and Hermes, 752 Demeter, 751 earliest records of, 750–751 first Olympians, 751 Hades, 751 Hera, 751 Hestia, 751 offspring of first Olympians, 751–752 Poseidon, 751 Zeus, 751 Olympic Games, 679–682 awards and recognition of winners, 681 boxing and pankration, 680–681 five-day games, 680–682 footrace, 680 origins and history of, 679–680 pentathlon, 680 sacred truce, 680 spectators, 682 sporting events, 680–681 wrestling, 680 Oracles, 753–759 definition of purpose, 753 oracle of Apollo (Claros), 753–754 oracle of Apollo (Didyma), 754 oracle of Zeus (Dodona), 754–755 oracle of Zeus (Olympia), 754 oracles of Asclepius, 757 Pythia, oracle of Delphi, 755–757, 758 vase painting of an old man consulting an oracle, 755

965

966

Index

Orators and speechwriters, 168–173 Aeschines, 171, 637, 885–887 Andocides, 170, 424–425, 587 Antiphon, 170, 424–425, 587 Demosthenes, 171–172 Dinarchus of Corinth, 172 expectations for citizen self-defense in court, 168 Hyperides, 171, 248–249, 692–693 Isaeus, 172 Isocrates, 58, 83, 153, 170–171, 593, 637, 813 Lycurgus, 170–171, 191, 240, 781, 841 speechwriting, 169 See also Aeschines on foreign negotiation and domestic mud-slinging Orphism definition of, 759 legend of, 759–760 and moral conduct, 761 Orpheotelestai (teachers of Orphic mysteries), 761 secrecy of, 761–762 and transmigration of human souls, 760–761 and Zagreus (proto-Dionysus), 760 and Zeus’s creation of human beings from soot of destroyed Titans, 760 Painting, pottery, 25–29 artists’ signatures, 28 Black Figure pottery, 26–27 Geometric phase, 26 graphe- (painting), 25 kerameia (pottery), 25 legacy of Greek innovation, quality, and style, 25

notable artists, 28 Red Figure pottery, 26 set design and shading techniques, 28 terracotta box, 27 Painting, walls/panels, 30–35 Apelles of Cos, 33 frescoes, 33–43 Ladies in Blue fresco from Palace Complex of Knossos, 31 Micon, 32, 34, 244 Panainos of Athens, 32, 34 Pausias of Sicyon, 33–34, 302 Polygnotus of Thasos, 28, 31–32, 34 Stoa Poikile artworks (Athens), 31–32 theme of defeat of “barbarism,” 32 Tomb of Persephone (Vergina) artworks, 33 Palace complexes, Bronze Age, 492–495 partially reconstructed section of the palace complex at Knossos on Crete, 493 Palaestrae. See Gymnasia/Palaestrae Panathenaia, 683–686 Panhellenic Games, 686–690 “Paper”-making, 863–866 Papyrus. See “Paper”-making Parchment. See “Paper”-making Parthenon (Temple of Athena Parthenos) and Classical Age sculpture and reliefs, 79–80 design and construction of, 79–80, 90, 92, 147, 448 Doric column style, 92 frieze, 79–80, 663, 684, 750 Iktinos, chief architect, 448 metopes, 79

Index

optical illusions of, 92, 448 and Panathenaic festival, 128, 339, 684 Phidias, directing sculptor, 7, 73, 79–80 Virgin Athena statue, 7, 73, 448, 684, 782 Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), 603–607 background and context, 603–604 Sicilian Expedition, 605–606 and siege warfare, 603–604 Thirty Years Peace, 604 Persian Wars (490–478 BCE), 607–610 Phalanx, 610–616 ancient Greek phalanx formation as depicted on the Chigi Vase, 611 Pharmacology. See Apothecaries/ pharmacology Phidias, 7, 28, 34, 72–73, 74, 79, 80, 148, 158, 447, 448 Philosophy, Aristotle, 35–37 definition of living well, 35–36 development toward telos (end result), 36 eudaimonia (maximum flourishing or happiness), 36, 37 Golden Mean and arete- (excellent behavior), 36 inclusivity and exclusivity, 36–37 Peripatetic school, 35 science and empiricism, 35 significance and legacy of, 35, 37 Philosophy, Cynics, 37–40 Antisthenes, 38–39, 58 “back-to-nature” philosophy, 38–39, 48, 894–895 belief in basic goodness of all human beings, 39

Crates of Thebes, 39, 48 Diogenes of Sinope, 38–39, 48 and happiness, 38 history of, 37–38 indifferent attitude toward human society, 38 Philosophy, Epicureans, 40–42 embracing life as form of happiness, 41 Epicurus of Athens, 40–42, 264, 265, 714 influence of atomist theory on, 40–41 quiet, “hidden” life of, 41 randomness of life, 40–41 types of pleasures, 41 Philosophy, Platonic, 42–45 and Agis IV, king of Sparta, 44 belief in rational philosophizing, 45 cardinal virtues, 43 human nature as a struggle with oneself, 43 idealism of, 43–44 philosopher-rulers, 43–44 Plato’s Academy and students, 42–43 Plato’s journey to Dionysius I, 44 political applications, 44 Philosophy, Skeptics, 45–48 Academic Skepticism, 46–47 Arcesilaus of Pitane, 46 attainment of apatheia (freedom from the tyranny of emotions), 47 attainment of ataraxia (freedom from worries or stress), 47 Carneades of Cyrene, 46–47 etymology of “Skeptic,” 47 and Platonism, 46–47 Pyrrhon, 14, 45–47 suspension of judgment, 45–46

967

968

Index

Philosophy, Stoics, 48–50 break from Cynics, 48 and Cleomenes III, king of Sparta, 49–50 cosmopolitan definition of human life, 49 Eternal Mind, 48 goal of apatheia (emotional freedom), 48 impact of, 49–50 mechanistic view of the universe, 48 political applications, 49–50 purpose for everything and everyone, 48 Zeno of Citium, 48, 264, 403 Physics, 866–870 Pindar of Thebes, 54–55, 131, 247, 302, 413–414, 458, 528, 571–572, 689, 714, 821, 916–919 ode to a wrestling champion (c. 463 BCE) (primary document), 916–919 odes to praise athletes and athletics, 640, 642, 643, 644, 656, 916–919 Piracy and banditry, 173–177 brigandage (banditry), 176 definition of pirates, 173–174 piracy, trade, and warfare, 174–176 Plague/epidemic disease, 495–496 Athenian plague, 596 during Peloponnesian War, 495–496 malaria, 496–497 tuberculosis, 496 Plato, political theory of, 616–620 applications of, 619 ideal community, 617 and sentimentality, 617–618

virtue as supreme goal of life, 616–617 See also Philosophy, Platonic Play, 293–297 ball games, 295 board games, 295 dice and marble games, 296 games, 294–295 toys, 293–294 Plutarch on father (Philip) and son (Alexander) (second century CE) (primary document), 919–921 on Alexander’s jealousy, 920 on Alexander’s mocking his father, 920 on Alexander’s taming a horse, 920 on hiring of Aristotle as Alexander’s tutor, 920 on quarrels and disorders of household, 920 Poetry, epic, 50–53 definition of, 50 epopoiia, rhapso-idia, 50 history of, 50–51 Iliad and Odyssey (Homer), 51–52 purpose of, 52–53 rhapsodes, 51–52 as storytelling, 52 Poetry, Greek poets on love (primary document), 921–924 Alcaeus of Lesbos, “I hate Love,” 922 Callimachus of Cyrene, “The Graces are four,” 922 Leonidas of Tarentum, “It is not I who wrong Love,” 922 Meleager of Gadara, “The noise of Love is ever in my ears,” 922 Poseidippos of Pella, “Blind Desire” (Epigram III), 923

Index

Sappho of Lesbos, “As for me / love has shaken my heart,” 923 Sappho of Lesbos, “I have a pretty little daughter,” 923 Sappho of Lesbos, “It is to be a god, I think,” 923 Poetry, Greek poets on war (primary document), 924–927 Alcaeus of Lesbos, “Not stone and timber,” 924 Alcaeus of Lesbos, “The great house is all agleam with bronze,” 924 Anyte of Tegea, “Your valour, Proarchus, slew you in the fight,” 924 Leonidas of Tarentum, “These spoils are not mine,” 924, 925 Simonides of Ceos, on the Athenian war dead at Plataea, 925 Simonides of Ceos, on the Spartan war dead at Plataea, 925 Tyrtaeus of Sparta, “For ‘tis a fair thing for a good man to fall and die,” 925–926 Tyrtaeus of Sparta, “I would neither call a man to mind nor put him in my tale,” 926–927 Poetry, lyric, 53–56 Alcaeus of Mytilene, 54, 55, 205 Archilochus of Paros, 54, 55 fame and recognition of lyric poets, 54 lyric poetry in praise of Greek athletes, 54–55 Mimnermus of Colophon, 55 musical accompaniment, 53 personal and intimate lyric poetry, 55

Pindar of Thebes, 54–55, 131, 247, 302, 413–414, 458, 528, 571–572, 640, 642, 645, 689, 714, 821, 916–919 Sappho of Lesbos, 55 social and political lyric poetry, 54 Theognis of Megara, 54, 677 Tyrtaeus of Sparta, 54, 629, 635, 925–926 warfare lyric poetry, 54 See also Pindar of Thebes Poisons and toxic foods, 421–424 Political theory. See Aristotle, political theory of; Plato, political theory of Potions, 424–426 Pottery. See Painting, pottery Pottery-making, 177–180 potter’s wheel, 177 pottery ovens and kilns, 178 shops and factories, 178, 179 slips and glazes, 177 styles of ceramic ware, 178 Poultry, birds, and eggs, 426–429 chickens, 426–427 eggs, 428 hunting fowl, 427 pigeon lofts and aviaries, 4282 terracotta deep-drinking cup with images of guinea fowl, 427 Priests and priestesses, 763–766 duties of, 765 expense of, 764 requirements, 763–764 service to goddesses, 764–765 Prophecy and divination, 766–769 legendary seers, 767 oracle mongers, 768–769 professional seers on military campaigns, 768

969

970

Index

Prostitutes and courtesans, 690–695 acceptance of, 690 Aspasia (famous courtesan), 693–694 criticism of, 691–692 Public buildings, 498–500 Public officials, 620–625 archons, 621–622 Athenian system, 621–623 military officials, 620 scrutiny of, 622–623 Spartan system, 623–624 Punishment. See Justice and punishment Pyrrhon, 14, 45–47 Pythagoras and astronomy, 808 and cosmology, 793, 808 and geometry, 831 and mathematics, 770, 819, 831, 852 Pythagorean Theorem, 831 and vegetarianism, 436–437, 770, 772 See also Pythagoreans Pythagoreans, 770–772 influence on medicine, 772 monism, 770 principle goals of, 770–771 transmigration of souls, 770–771 Racing, 695–698 female runners, 695 length of races, 695–696 terracotta jar depicting footrace at Panathenaic festival, 696 training, 696 torch races, 697 Resident aliens, immigrants, and foreigners, 500–503 in Athens, 501–502

protections for, 501 in Sparta, 502 Retirement, 180–182 Greek concept of, 180 Greek “retirement plan” of family and community support, 180–181 population of senior citizens, 181 retirement from civic life, 181 second careers, 181 Rhetoric, 56–59 Corax and Tisias, 57 Gorgias of Leontini, 57–58 history of, 56–57 Isocrates, 58, 83, 153, 170–171, 593, 637, 813 Lysias of Syracuse, 58, 172, 219, 587, 691, 813, 908–910 schools and formal education, 58 and Sophists, 57–58 Sacred groves. See Temples, shrines, and sacred groves Sacrifices, 773–777 animals, 773 human sacrificing, 775 ritual feast, 775 sacrificial ritual, 773–775 Sappho of Lesbos Aeolic Greek of, 834 “It is to be a god, I think” (primary document), 923 Satyr plays, 59–63 actors, 60 costumes, 60 Cyclops (Euripides), 60–61 history and origins of, 59 language of, 61–62 mythological concept of satyrs, 59–60

Index

role of archon, 59–60 Trackers (Sophocles), 60–61 and tragic drama, 61–62 Sculpture, Archaic, 63–67 bronze works, 66 faces and expressions, 64–65 history of, 63 influence of Egyptian trade contacts on, 63 kore- (young woman) statues, 63–64 kouros (young man) statues, 63–64 marble statue of a young man, or kouros, 64 metopes, 65, 66 purpose of male and female sculptures, 65 stone used, 63–64 stones works, 63–65 temple pediment embellishments, 66 terracotta works, 66 triglyphs, 65 Sculpture, Hellenistic, 67–72 Aphrodite of Melos (Venus de Milo), 70 Apoxyomenos, 67 Cephisodotus of Athens, 68, 302 depictions of everyday life, 69–71 Ephebe of Antikythera, 67–68 Epigonos, 69 Euphranor, 67–68 female form, 69–71 focus on emotional state of subjects, 68–69 Laocoön and his Sons, 69, 70 Lysippus, 67–68 marble statue group depicting murder of Laocoon and his sons by a sea serpent, 70 Nike of Samothrace, 69–70

physical detail and proportions, 68 Polyeuktos, 69 Scopas of Paros, 68–69 Sculpture/freestanding statuary, classical, 72–76 Aphrodite (Praxiteles), 75–76 bronze artworks, 72–76 Doryphoros (Polykleitos), 73–74 Hera (Polykleitos), 73 marble statue of Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer), 73 Myron of Eleutherae, 75 Nike (Paionios), 69, 75 Phidias, 7, 28, 34, 72–73, 74, 79, 80, 148, 158, 447, 448 Polykleitos of Argos, 68, 73–75 Riace Bronzes, 72 Wounded Amazon (Polykleitos), 75 Sculpture/reliefs, mounted statuary, classical, 77–81 combining new and old pediment styles, 77–78, 79 metope depicting Heracles holding up the heavens, from Temple of Zeus at Olympia, 78 metopes, 79 Parthenon, 79–80 Temple of Zeus (Olympia), 77–79 theme of conflict between civilized and savage, 78, 79 Scylax of Caryanda, 10, 823–824, 827 Seafood, 429–431 dried and salted fish, 430 imported fish, 43 native fish, 429 seafood preparation and dishes, 429–430 terracotta fish-plate, or pinakion, 430

971

972

Index

Seasonings. See Condiments and seasonings Second Sophistic Movement, 81–85 Adrianus of Tyre, 82–83 Aelius Aristides of Mysia, 83 dates and origins of, 81–82 Dio Cocceianus of Prusa, 83 Herodes Atticus, 82–84 legacy of, 84–85 Lucian of Samosata, 84 Nicetes of Smyrna, 82 and Philostratus the Younger (“the Athenian”), 83–84 Polemo of Laodicea, 82–83 rivalries and oratorical contests, 84 Scopelianus of Clazomenae, 82 social status and careers, 84 Segregation in the military, 582, 614 residential segregation of the sexes (andro-n and gynaiko-nitis), 449–451 socioeconomic segregation, 674 Sophists on, 87 of spouses, 280 Sexuality, 297–301 and adultery, 298 and desire for offspring within marriage, 297 double standards, 298–299 euphemisms for sex, 297 forced sex with enslaved persons, 298 Greek celebration of, 297 as important for women’s health, 297–298 pleasurable sex reserved for male Greeks, 298 and self-gratification, 298

sex-toys and pornography, 298–299 sexual abstinence, 299 See also Homosexuality Ships/shipbuilding, 870–874 maintenance and upkeep, 873 shipbuilding process, 870–871 warships, 872–873 Shrines. See Temples, shrines, and sacred groves Siege technology, 625–628 fortification walls, 625–626 mechanical sling-shoot, 627–628 missile-hurling devices, 626–627 Silver. See Gold and silver Skeptics. See Philosophy, Skeptics Slavery, private, 182–186 in Athens, 183–184 chattel slavery, 182–183 debt slavery, 137, 182 enslaved prisoners of war, 183 escape from slavery, 184 legislation protecting enslaved persons, 185 marble grave marker, or stele, depicting a young Athenian man with slave boy, 183 and Solon’s reforms, 182–183 winning freedom, 185 work and services done by enslaved persons, 184 Slavery, public, 186–189 Athenian mint slave labor, 186 helot enslavement in Sparta, 187–188 mass enslavement, 186 in Thesoly, 186–187 Social revolution, Hellenistic era, 189–192 counterrevolution of Leonidas II against Agis IV, 190

Index

impact of Platonism and Stoicism on, 191 and League of Corinth, 189–190 reinstitution of reforms by Cleomenes III, 190 Sons, 301–304 education, 303 legal adulthood, 303 military service, 302 naming of, 301 responsibilities of religious traditions, 301–302 Sophists, 85–89 on diversity of Greek society, 87 emphasis on “waking up” to the world’s realities, 86 Gorgias of Leontini, 57, 86, 87 and Heraclitus of Ephesus, 86 human barriers and segregation seen as artificial, 87 meaning of the term, 85 negative view of, 88 as original humanists, 88 origins of Sophistic “movement,” 86 political and social applications, 86 Protagoras of Abdera, 86, 87, 88 travel and wanderings of, 86–87 Sophocles, 98 Soups and stews, 432–433 Spartan Constitution, 628–631 on board of five ephors (overseers of order and discipline), 629–630 on kingship, 630 on removal of children from their homes, 629 and Spartan survivalist doctrine, 630–631 Speechwriters. See Orators and speechwriters

Stadiums and hippodromes, 698–701 hippodromes, 699–700 stadiums, 698–699 Steam power. See artificial power Stews. See Soups and stews Stoics. See Philosophy, Stoics Symposia, 701–704 definition of, 701 master of ceremonies, 702 opening libation, music, and snacks, 701–702 purposes of, 701–702, 703 and social ties and status, 703 women at, 702 Taxation, 192–196 citizen taxes, 193 customs duties, 193 emergency property tax, 194 fees and fines silver mines, 193 multinational taxation, 194 resident alien poll tax, 193 tax exemption, 195 Temple architecture, 89–93 Archaic Period, 89–90 Bronze Age, 89 Doric columns, 90–92 Egyptian temples compared with, 90–91 general description of Greek temples, 90–91 Hellenistic Period, 91 materials, tools, and techniques, 90 Parthenon, 92 “Temple of Hera” at Paestum in southern Italy, 91 Temple of Zeus as example of balance, 92 Temple of Athena Parthenos. See Parthenon

973

974

Index

Temples, shrines, and sacred groves, 777–783 alters, 780 communal shrines, 779–780 formal settings, 779–881 natural settings, 777–779 shrines to heroes, 780–781 terracotta jar depicting a woman making an offering before a flaming altar, 780 tomb shrines, 779 Thales of Miletus, 807–808, 819, 860, 866 Theater, comedy, 93–96 Athenian awards for, 94 excerpt from The Girl from Samos (Menander of Athens; primary document), 910–914 history of, 93–94 Menander of Athens, 83, 94–95, 420, 476 Middle Comedy, 95 New Comedy, 95 Old Comedy, 94–95 styles of, 94 See also Aristophanes of Athens Theater, tragedy, 96–99 costumes, masks, and scenery, 98 Dionysian festivals, 98 history of, 96–97 and social conservatism, 98 traveling companies (Dionysian artists), 98 See also Aeschylus; Euripides; Sophocles Theaters, 704–707 and natural settings, 705 stage, 706 theater of Herodes Atticus at Athens, 705

variations in size, 704 Theocritus of Syracuse, 310 Idylls (vignettes of everyday experiences), 15, 424 short story describing women at a festival (primary document), 928–931 Theophrastus of Lesbos, 58, 116, 165, 392, 422, 672, 802–803, 868, 882 Thucydides, 11–12 as (“Father of Scientific History”), 12 on Athenian democracy and constitution, 529 Attic language of, 835 education of, 813 on effects of warfare, 561, 638 on Peloponnesian War, 626 on plague, 495–496 on thalassocracy of Minos, 598 on wartime wagons, 879 Thucydides on Corcyraean Revolution (427 BCE) (primary document), 931–934 on ambition and lust for power, 933 on death and destruction, 932–933 on loss of honor, 933 on revolution’s beginning, 931–932 Time-reckoning, 874–876 Toxic foods. See Poisons and toxic foods Trade, 197–201 Archaic Period, 198 Bronze Age, 197–198 carrying trade, 199 Classical Age, 197–198 and colonization movement, 197 Dark Age, 197 grain imports, 199–200

Index

Hellenistic Era, 200 history of, 197 olive oil exports, 199 trade with non-Greeks, 197–198 Tragedy. See Theater, tragedy Travel, 201–205 horseback travel, 202–203 mountain passes, 202 ship travel, 203–204 travel clothing, 202 two-wheeled carts, 203 waystations and inns, 204 Tyrannies, 631–635 champions of change, 632 Cypselus, 622 Pisistratus, 632–633 puppets of outside powers, 631–632 Tyrtaeus of Sparta, 54, 629, 635, 925–926 “For ’tis a fair thing for a good man to fall and die” (primary document), 925–926 Underworld. See Afterlife/underworld Urban life, 503–510 crime and criminal justice, 506–508 crimes of miasma (defilement or pollution), 507 and demes (divisions of territory), 505–506 phratries, 504–505 population demographics, 509 poverty and homelessness, 508 and private associations, 504–505 public entertainment, 504 street structures, 504 variations in layout and scale of urban centers, 503–504 welfare programs, 508

Vegetables, 434–436 leafy greens, 434 in literature, 434 onion, garlic, leek, parsley, and fennel, 435 pickled vegetables, 435 root vegetables, 434–435 stalks, flower heads, and shoots, 435 vine vegetables, 435 wild mushrooms, 435 Vegetarianism, 436–440 animal cruelty arguments, 439 Empedocles on, 437, 438–439 and Hinduism, 437 Plutarch on, 437, 438, 439 Porphyry on, 437–438 and Pythagoras, 436–437, 439 Stoics on, 439 transmigration theories, 436–437, 439 Vehicles, 877–881 chariots, 878–879 covered wagons, 878 handcart, 877 terracotta oil flask depicting cart in an Athenian wedding procession, 878 two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles pulled by draught animals, 877–878 Viticulture, 205–208 as cash crop, 207 dried grapes, 206 Greek legacy of, 207 planting vineyards, 206 pruning vineyards, 207 tenting vineyards, 206–207

975

976

Index

Warfare, attitudes toward, 635–638 Classical Era, 637–638 communal attitudes, 636 and historical periods, 636–637 hoplite warfare, 635 return of war dead, 636 spoils of war, 636 warnings about warfare, 637 wars of gods, 638 Water power. See artificial power Water supply and hydraulic engineering, 510–515 Weddings, 305–308 banquet, 306 cost of, 305 dowries, 305 location of wedding ceremony, 305–306 nighttime procession, 306–307 offerings to the goods, 305 terracotta wedding vase illustrating preparations for a wedding ceremony, 306 wedding consummation, 307 Weights and measures, 208–211 dry and liquid volume, 209 length measurements based on the human body, 208–209 weights, 209–210 Wet nurses. See Midwives and wet nurses Wind power. See artificial power Wine, 440–443 diluted with water, 441–442 mixed with honey, 442 in mythology, 440–441 preferences for, 441 regions of highly valued wines, 442 and social class, 441

terracotta mixing bowl depicting two young men in conversation, 442 wine production, 441 Women, 308–315 Athenian women, 311 education of, 308 gender roles, 309 household segregation of sexes (Andro-n and Gynaiko-nitis), 281, 308, 310, 449–451 life expectancy, 312 in literature, 313 marriage, 309 paid occupations, 311 and political participation, 311 positive attitudes toward, 313–314 and religious participation, 311–312 rites of passage, 308–309 seclusion, 309 as separate “race,” 308 Spartan women, 312 stereotypes of, 313 widowhood and divorce, 312–313 Wrestling, 707–710 in art, 707–708 forms and techniques, 708–709 literature, 709 oiling the body, 708 in open courtyards, 708 skills needed, 709 training, 709 Xenophon on adulterers, 221 Cyne-getica (handbook for hunters), 397 on female dancers, 2 on helots, 187 on marriage, 280, 310, 934–936

Index

on mime performance, 656 on mothers, 286 on piracy, 175 and prophecy, 767, 768 return of treasure left at Temple of Artemis, 120 on sword dancing, 655 Symposium, 283 on transporting war-wounded, 767, 768, 879 on warfare, 637 Xenophon on roles of wife and husband (primary document), 934–936

on choice of a wife, 934–935 on division of labor, 935–936 on managing servants, 936 Youth. See childhood and youth Zeno of Citium, 48, 264, 403 Zoology, 881–884 Anaximander of Miletus, 881 Aristotle, 882–883 and medical knowledge, 882–883 Pliny the Elder, 882–883 Plutarch, 881 veterinary medicine, 883

977

Michael Lovano, PhD, teaches all aspects of European history at St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wisconsin. Before coming to St. Norbert, he taught at Pepperdine University and at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He also served as the instructor of overseas summer programs in Rome, Italy, for both UCLA and Loyola Marymount University/Loyola University Chicago. A specialist in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, Lovano’s published works include the two-volume All Things Julius Caesar: An Encyclopedia of Caesar’s World and Legacy (ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), a monograph on Julius Caesar’s father-in-law titled The Age of Cinna (in the Historia Einzelschriften series of Franz Steiner Verlag), a chapter on “Tacitus’ Annals” in the collection Classical Literature and Its Times (from Thomson-Gale), and a chapter on “Rome: A Story of Conflict” in The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Lovano earned his doctorate in history at UCLA.